To create objects by uploading an Excel file, the user must download the template with all the attributes of the selected object type and fill it in with the metadata of the objects they want to register, then upload the completed file. The created objects can also be automatically sent for validation.
Object creation via Excel is available for the object types for which the user has creation permission.
Both the downloaded and uploaded Excel file must have the .xlsx extension. The downloaded file may be renamed and, when editing it, it is necessary to keep the same cell format as when the Excel was downloaded, or alternatively set the cells to Text type to avoid conversions to numbers in scientific format.
Once the file has been uploaded, Anjana will check whether it corresponds to the chosen subtype and, if not, will display an error message.
If the file is correct, when the user clicks Create object, a window will appear with an auto-generated name for the Import job that is about to begin. This name is editable so that the user can specify a different name for it.
Upon confirmation, a message will appear with a link to access the details of the import job.
Further details about jobs can be found in the Jobs section of the User Guide.
Since the same file can include objects that will be created in Anjana and others that will be directly submitted for validation, the checks for both types of objects differ:
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for an object that is only created in Anjana and for which no validation workflow is triggered, the following is checked:
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that the PK attributes of its template are filled in
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that the attribute values are of the correct type
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if the attribute is of type Entity or array of Entities, that their status is Approved
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This is because the remaining attributes can be edited later and their validations will therefore be checked at a later stage.
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for an object that, in addition to being created in Anjana, is submitted for validation, the following is checked:
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that the PK attributes of its template are filled in
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that the attribute values are of the correct type
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that the mandatory attributes of its template are filled in
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that the values comply with the validations configured for the attributes
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Anjana will additionally check that the name of each object does not exceed 255 characters and, if it does, will display a message to the user in Jobs indicating this.
Excel template
The downloaded template consists of an Excel file with several tabs. The first contains the Readme with instructions on how to fill in the attribute values.
The next tab is where the metadata of the objects to be registered will be entered (in the case of creating datasets, the dataset metadata is included along with an additional tab for dataset fields).
In this tab, each column corresponds to a template attribute, indicating which menu and section it belongs to and its type.
For Reference Metadata attributes of type text, icon, text and icon, taxonomy, user, or organisational unit, the list of possible values is included.
Some attributes appear highlighted with a different font colour or background colour depending on the template configuration. Instructions about this colour coding and other relevant information on how to complete the object metadata are set out in the Readme tab. Example:
In addition, the Excel file can indicate whether the user wants to submit each object for validation after creating it in Anjana, using two additional columns in the Excel file that must be completed for each object to be catalogued:
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Submit for validation: flag that indicates whether the created object is automatically submitted for validation or not
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if “Submit for validation”=true, the validation workflow is triggered and the object is left in pending status
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otherwise, the object is created but remains in draft status to be completed later (flag=false, null or any value other than true)
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Role:
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if “Submit for validation”=true, the role with which the user triggers the validation workflow
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otherwise, the role does not apply
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LIMITATIONS:
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To avoid loss of processing performance and overloading the machine, it is recommended not to upload templates with more than 5,000 objects. Therefore, when importing datasets with dataset fields, the total number of entities in the Excel file (both datasets and dataset fields) must not exceed 5,000. If more than 5,000 entities or relationships need to be imported, this must be done using separate Excel files.
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The template is downloaded in .xlsx format, which allows 1,048,576 rows. If this limit is exceeded, the spreadsheet itself will remove any elements beyond that number when saving the file.
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The maximum file size allowed for upload is 10 MB; this limit can be changed through configuration.
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Using LibreOffice, Google Sheets, OneDrive Excel, or any tool other than Microsoft Excel to edit the Excel file to be imported into Anjana may cause formatting errors. Some examples are:
NOTES:
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Template attributes of type UPLOAD_FILE and ARRAY_UPLOAD_FILE are not included in the Excel file because MinIO/S3 interaction is required to obtain an ARI (internal identifier) to associate with the field. This means that an object whose template identifies those fields as mandatory can never be submitted directly from Excel, as it must first be edited through the portal.
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Attributes with INHERITABLE validation are not included in the downloaded Excel template since their value is calculated internally by Anjana.