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Topic Title: Excel Myths
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Created On: 11-Dec-2002 17:07
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Answer This question was answered by Louie Landale, on Wednesday, December 11, 2002 9:42 PM

Answer:
To clarify Jobina's post: when importing from a spread sheet:

o You'll need to convert it to tab or comma delimited (text) file. This gets a little tricky since the imported text can have tabs and comma's in it. When you THINK you have such a text file ready, open it up in Excel and see if Excel understands it correctly. Close without saving. Optionally open it with Word and try to convert it to a table.

o The column headers in the spread sheet can be made to match attributes in the Module; either directly (they have the exact same name) or indirectly (you can map them in the Import Dialog).

o The DOORS Import facility will ask you the name of the "key" attribute (it asks after you say OK or whatever). If the import spread sheet has the Absolute Number in it (because you had the foresight to export that column) and define that as the "key", then Objects with the same Absolute Number will get UPDATED.

o This whole scheme works only if nobody else is changing these attributes in DOORS while the DOORS-averse engineers are updating the spread sheet.

I'd be tempted to do a practice import, mapping the Spread-sheet's "Object Text" to a new attribute "Object Text Import". Then display the new attribute side by side with the real Text and insure you are not about to overwrite something important. Close the module without saving, then reimport mapping Object Text correctly.

- Louie
 11-Dec-2002 17:07
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Doina Scafaru

Posts: 28
Joined: 16-Sep-2002

I will need your feedback to clarify the way updating from an Excel file is working since it came to my attention that there is a way that this operation automatically updates existing DOORS objects in a given module and no end user extra work is involved.

The way I experienced with Excel is this. One can export a module view to Excel and make some additions/changes. When you update the existing objects in DOORS via the Import from Spreadsheet, the existing objects are not automatically updated. DOORS is actually appending new objects in the module and the end user can display the newly created attributes via Column/New. To actually update the object text, an end user would need to manually copy/paste the data from the Excel file to the specific object in the DOORS module.

Do you know of a better/faster way to do this without going through the cut/paste exercise?

I will appreciate very much your prompt feedback.

Thank you.

Doina Scafaru
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 11-Dec-2002 17:25
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Jobina Johnson

Posts: 55
Joined: 12-Sep-2002

You can update the Object Text using the import by spreadsheet option. When you export to Excel make sure you have the absolute number column to be used when importing but into DOORS. Use the absolute number as the unique idenitifer and any change in the object text will be updated in DOORS. Object Text needs to be column in your spreadsheet

I know that doing a RTF File import appends files to the module below the current object.

Hope this helps

Jobina

-------------------------


jobina.l.johnson@boeing.com
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 11-Dec-2002 18:30
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Louie Landale

Posts: 2070
Joined: 12-Sep-2002

Answer Answer
To clarify Jobina's post: when importing from a spread sheet:

o You'll need to convert it to tab or comma delimited (text) file. This gets a little tricky since the imported text can have tabs and comma's in it. When you THINK you have such a text file ready, open it up in Excel and see if Excel understands it correctly. Close without saving. Optionally open it with Word and try to convert it to a table.

o The column headers in the spread sheet can be made to match attributes in the Module; either directly (they have the exact same name) or indirectly (you can map them in the Import Dialog).

o The DOORS Import facility will ask you the name of the "key" attribute (it asks after you say OK or whatever). If the import spread sheet has the Absolute Number in it (because you had the foresight to export that column) and define that as the "key", then Objects with the same Absolute Number will get UPDATED.

o This whole scheme works only if nobody else is changing these attributes in DOORS while the DOORS-averse engineers are updating the spread sheet.

I'd be tempted to do a practice import, mapping the Spread-sheet's "Object Text" to a new attribute "Object Text Import". Then display the new attribute side by side with the real Text and insure you are not about to overwrite something important. Close the module without saving, then reimport mapping Object Text correctly.

- Louie
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 11-Dec-2002 21:20
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Doina Scafaru

Posts: 28
Joined: 16-Sep-2002

Louie, the trouble I have with my view is the big number of objects:10145. Also, keeping the same column heading names has been rejected by DOORS. I got a message stating "This attributes already exists". Also, given the size of the module, DOORS is telling me "Object Text for Absolute Number XXY is too long, Text will be truncated" and so on. Your scheme did not work so far. The only thing I got are the new objects that DOORS is appending in the existing module.
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 11-Dec-2002 21:47
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Doina Scafaru

Posts: 28
Joined: 16-Sep-2002

Louie, I just made another test. It did partialy work. The object text got updated, but the new rows had been created out of sequence as the new objects in DOORS. Thank you for the good advise and please, disregard my earlier message. Doina
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 11-Dec-2002 23:05
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Louie Landale

Posts: 2070
Joined: 12-Sep-2002

If you had previously failed to use the AbsNo as "key" then your module will have lots and lots of objects. Resolving that sounds like a nightmare, but should include deleting and purging the extra objects.

DOORS v60 had some problems with large Histories causing us to run out of virual memory. v60sr1 mostly solved the problem. Never-the-less, after you've done a major purge I'd be tempted to Baseline the module just to erase the "current" history file; this may solve your module-is-too-big issues. I've never heard of "Object Text is too big" but maybe its a related symptom. I HAVE heard of that for "string" attributes, since they have a natural size limit (perhaps 430 characters).

- Louie
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