Hi,
I have a requirement to process certain Excel tabs & cell contents and apply a set of 'logic rules' to those contents, in order to shape a series of output text paragraphs in a report format.
The source values are a mix of numeric, range, text & boolean values taken from an assessment questionnaire. I don't want to focus on using OutSystems for the data collection (yet), but instead on processing a set of actual responses.
The logic rules would be a set of 'if, and/or, not' based rules per response value, allowing the selection from a set of pre-prepared output statements, possibly with the injection of certain key cell values from the Excel sheets.
There may be 10-20 response values to be processed in one full assessment.
The closest analogy I can think of from traditional IT processes is a kind of advanced, logic driven mail-merge and more extensive formatted report output.
Any advice on a good start point for someone totally new to OutSystems and using a trial account to see what can be done?
Regards,
Bob.
Hi Bob, you will need to use for each and List Functions inside the action to iterate the list of values.
See the logic and actions training
https://www.outsystems.com/training/courses/125/logic/?LearningPathId=18
this thread can help with uploading excel files
https://www.outsystems.com/forums/discussion/53807/how-to-upload-an-excel-file-with-data-and-insert-in-table/
and this one if you want to download an excel file in the end.
https://success.outsystems.com/Documentation/How-to_Guides/Data/How_to_customize_the_export_to_Excel
João Fernandes
Thanks for this - I have already looked at a couple of links and videos. One for Excel simply tells me to import the Excel to a table, but the source assessment spreadsheet is quite complex and has a freeform layout. I want to be able to map and draw contents from various tabs, columns and so on, adding my own value names. I don't have one tab which is a neat set of headers and values which the basic import would seem to need.
Hi Bob, probably the best way is to create a macro in excel to read your source spreadsheet and create a new one with all data in OutSystems import format. You can create your macro to read more than one assessment spreadsheet and put all data into one table so you can import it into an entity in Outsystems.
Thanks again for the response.
I'm actually looking to see how easy it is to have OutSystems run such a macro or manipulate the source spreadsheet and create the import tabs for me first, then as a second stage it could import to the OutSystems DB...
Shame that there doesn't seem to be an easy way to open any Excel source and pretty much drag or mark the cells from several tabs to then build your DB that way - would seem to be a really useful feature.