Importing Data From Excel and Word Documents

By Santhosh Kalaiyarasu Sparx Systems India | Suresh Jayakumar Sparx Systems India

Using Workspaces, Customizing Ribbon Sets, Selecting Perspectives, MDG Selection and the most important windows for better modelling

Session Recording

Questions and Answers

Schwenke, Frank AE/BHL-TFCA (Guest) : I missed the beginnig of the presentation. Where do I get this Microsoft-Office Add-In?

You can get it downloaded from here

What will be usage of enable synchronization while importing?

Synchronization is useful if you intend to use the same imported spreadsheet to update and reimport later, if Synch is enabled, the changes will be updated, and only new elements will be created.

Is the synchronisation automatic or does it need to be manually triggered?

It should be manually enabled each time while importing by clicking "Enable Synchronization" in both Excel and word importer.

Could you show how import tags?

Shown now in Word Import Profile definition, the tags are mapped manually by typing the tag names, to keep it easier, if the column names are same as tag names, you can say 'auto Fill Columns' the importer (once you mapped all other fields)

Is it possible to "Undo" an import?

Import is like XMI import, you cant undo, however its recommended to take a baseline before import / synch to ensure you are able to rollback

Can you explain the update of an element plz ?

Once Synchronization is enabled in the first import, the document will be updated with GUIDs, and you any subsequent import from the same Excel (as master file) with changes to elements or connectors or tagged values will be updated in the model,

How would we specify to use a custom stereotype with extra attributes?

At the moment Stereotype is a Text (free text) field and so you can type the Stereotype Name or FQ Stereotype Name to import, the tagged values are manually typed in for now

Will the synchronisation automatically detect changes in the source file?

If you reimport the source file again, the importer will identify the changes in the source file and import the changes, however there is not auto-synch if the files are modified.

Is it obvious in EA that the element is linked rather than created in EA? Can it be updated locally? or only via source spreadsheet?

The elements once created in EA won't be identifieable as an imported element, the only place where there is a link between the element and the Excel is in the Excel (Column A inserted by importer) where the GUIDs are updated.

Thanks for the presentation. I do use APG Modelflow to import files. I was wondering what would be the most relevant differences between ModelFlow and the excel importer.

Office integration is a simple plugin to allow quick and easy import from Excel or Word into any EA Project or to quickly generate Excel Export from Model, Modelflow is a comprehensive Model governance utility which also includes some ability to import from Excel.

Speakers Bio

Santhosh Kalaiyarasu

Sparx Systems India

Suresh Jayakumar

Sparx Systems India

EA Consultant & Trainer in Sparx Systems India