As the portfolio administrator, you typically will be tasked with getting the initial data about your enterprise's IT portfolio in the Alfabet database. Only a user with the Portfolio Admin user profile can generate XLSX files to capture data and import those files back to Alfabet . Users must have a spreadsheet program available to process the XLSX files. The same XLSX file that is exported from Alfabet must be used to capture and import the data to Alfabet .

The Data Import section in the left navigation panel has two functionalities relevant to data import:

  • The Data Roundtrip view provides an easy-to-use overview of the meta-model and how object classes stand in relation to each other. Here you can select the object classes and references that you want to capture data for as well as generate and import the XLSX files with the data.
  • The Data Capture Templates view is for more advanced users and allows you to configure data capture templates that determine the data that shall be captured in the XLSX files.

The following describes the general process and important requirements for importing and exporting XLSX files described below:

NUMB_1  Understand the Data Roundtrip visualization for efficient data import
NUMB_2  Review the recommended sequence to import object classes
NUMB_3  Focus on the data you want to capture
NUMB_4  Configure data capture templates to focus the data capture activity on your company's specific needs
NUMB_5  Export XLSX files for object classes and references
NUMB_6  Know the rules to capture data in the XLSX file
NUMB_7  Validate the correctness of the data
NUMB_8  Import the XLSX file back to Alfabet
NUMB_9  Review the success of the import
NUMB_10  Review the data quality for a business question