Import from Excel Workbook Job

Search for	Example	Results
A single word	`cat`	Topics that contain the word "cat". You will also find its grammatical variations, such as "cats".
A phrase. You can specify that the search results contain a specific phrase.	`"cat food"` (quotation marks)	Topics that contain the literal phrase "cat food" and all its grammatical variations. Without the quotation marks, the query is equivalent to specifying an OR operator, which finds topics with one of the individual words instead of the phrase.

Search for	Operator	Example
Two or more words in the same topic	`AND` `and` `+` (plus symbol) `&` (ampersand)	`cat AND dog` `"cat food"+milk` `"cat food"&"dog food"`
Either word in a topic	`OR` `or` `\|` (pipe)	`cat OR dog` `cat \| dog`
Topics that do not contain a specific word or phrase	`NOT` `not` `!` (exclamation point)	`NOT cat` `! dog`
Topics that contain one string and do not contain another	`^` (caret)	`cat ^ mouse`
A combination of search types	`( )` parentheses	`cat + (dog \| mouse)` `cat \| dog + (! mouse)`

Note The Import from Excel Sample job is similar to the Import from Excel Workbook job. It differs only by reference to the sample import file.

This section includes:

Discovery Mechanism

Each tab in the Excel file reflects a specific CI type. The CIT must be defined in the UCMDB data model prior to importing file content. If only out-of-the-box CITs are imported, you do not have to create the CITs because they already exist in UCMDB.

All attributes defined for a CIT must also already exist in UCMDB or the data will be rejected. Any special rules for attributes—such as data type, obligation, formatting, and so on—must also be acceptable by UCMDB for the data to be successfully imported into UCMDB.

The data type of the attribute —string, long, integer, boolean, and so on— depends on the UCMDB data model. You do not need to set attribute types manually. You must specify the attribute name in the document header line.

Discovery performs the following validations:

Verifies that the CITs on the tabs in the Excel spreadsheet exist in UCMDB.
Verifies that the attributes (the column names in the Excel spreadsheet) exist in UCMDB.
Checks the presence of key attributes on the Excel spreadsheet.
Processes all CITs that contain a root_container attribute after CITs that do not have this type of attribute. This helps to ensure that the parent CI is created before a contained CI.
Processes the relationships tab last to create relationships between CIs that do not use the containment (container_f) relationship.

For the relationship to be created, the keyed attributes of a CI must be used in the relationships tab.
Relation attributes also must exist in the UCMDB class model.

Verifies that the CITs on the tabs in the Excel spreadsheet exist in UCMDB.
Verifies that the attributes (the column names in the Excel spreadsheet) exist in UCMDB.
Checks the presence of key attributes on the Excel spreadsheet.
Processes all CITs that contain a root_container attribute after CITs that do not have this type of attribute. This helps to ensure that the parent CI is created before a contained CI.
Processes the relationships tab last to create relationships between CIs that do not use the containment (container_f) relationship.

For the relationship to be created, the keyed attributes of a CI must be used in the relationships tab.
Relation attributes also must exist in the UCMDB class model.

Job Parameters

Parameter	Description
file_name	The import file name. An absolute path accessible from the used probe must be used. For details on settin up this file, see How to Set Up an Import File in Excel.
integer_list_delimiter	The delimiter used to handle values in the spreadsheet that are to be treated as the UCMDB data type integer_list.
string_list_delimiter	The delimiter used to handle values in the spreadsheet which would be mapped as the UCMDB data type string_list.
relationship_attr_delimiter	On the Relationship tab of the source file object, the linked attributes could be added. The default is attribute_name\|attribute_value (a pipe symbol is used between the attribute name and value). This should be aligned with actual data.

Created/Changed Entities

Entity Name	Entity Type	Entity Description
Import from Excel Workbook	Job	Main importing job
Import from Excel Sample	Job	Sample job that imports the predefined sample import file
XLS_Parser	Adapter	Discovery adapter
import_from_excel.py	Script	Main import script
xlsutils.py	Script	Contains utility methods for class model validation and fetching objects from Excel worksheets
ciimports_for9.xls	Resource	Sample import file
poi-3.7-beta1-20100620.jar	Resource	Java library for working with Excel 97-2003 file format
poi-ooxml-3.7-beta1-20100620.jar	Resource	Java library for working with Excel 2007 file format
poi-ooxml-schemas-3.7-beta1-20100620.jar	Resource	Java library with XML schemas used in Excel 2007 files
geronimo-stax-api_1.0_spec-1.0.jar	Resource	Geronimo implementation of standard XML processing API (used by POI)
xmlbeans-2.3.0.jar	Resource	Library for accessing XML by binding it to Java types (used by POI)