Export to Excel with unique id's?

General Questions/Discussions
1

Hi,

I’m having a problem with the functionality to export an UML diagram to an Excel file.
At our company we have the following case:

  • we create an UML diagram in Agilian
  • we export the diagram to Excel
  • we provide the Excel to our customer so he/she can add comments
  • as soon as we get the Excel back, we import it again in Agilian

However, the Excel generated by Agilian is quite complex, so we want to write a tool that simplifies the Excel file to provide only the fields the customer needs. This tool will also be able to merge these simplified Excel files back to our current UML diagram (which might have changed since the version that the client added comments to).
The problem we are facing now is that there are no unique identifiers in these Excel files which makes us link the customer’s simplified Excel file back to our current file. When you generate an Excel file in Agilian, there is a column named ‘Model ID’, but this ID isn’t consistent when you export the same model twice.
We also do not want to use name-matching because this is too dangerous as some class/property names might have changed since we provided the model to our customer.

My question: Is it possible to export an Excel file where all parts of the exported model have unique identifiers that don’t change over different exports?

Thanks in advance,

Arne Deruwe

2

Hello Arne Deruwe,

You should link up the Model ID with the values in the System Data sheet in the Excel file, where it will link to a stable unique ID. But please note that you should only reference to that ID, but never modify its value. Hope this help.

Best regards,
Rain Wong

3

[quote=Rain]Hello Arne Deruwe,

You should link up the Model ID with the values in the System Data sheet in the Excel file, where it will link to a stable unique ID. But please note that you should only reference to that ID, but never modify its value. Hope this help.

Best regards,
Rain Wong[/quote]

Hi Rain Wong,

Indeed, this is just what I need. Thanks for the answer!

Arne Deruwe

4

Hi Arne,

Glad to know that the problem has been solved. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Best regards,
Jick Yeung