Need more powerful saved mapping capabilities for imports and Round Trip (templates, public, private

Joon Chang
Joon Chang
edited October 2016 in
When trying to do a round trip import using a saved field mapping, it fails for most users other than the user that initially created the mapping. It turns out that the generated excel files have different column orders depending on the user's specific view setting for that item type.  So, since most users have their own preferred views, the shared field mapping for import is of no use. As it is, when I change my own view for that item type, my own field mapping also has to be updated. Is this meant to work this way for a reason?  Is there a workaround?   
Ultimately, I would like to have a shared field mapping so that our test case developers can work off line when needed using the round trip export/import method and not have to redefine the field mapping each time.  Can anyone help?

Comments

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    edited September 2016
    Joon,

    I can certainly understand your frustration and sympathize with your experience with this behavior of List View and Excel RoundTrip. I think it may be nice again to remind Jama about the enhancement request to have saved, configurable private and public views and also enhance Jama Excel import Wizard to have a little more intelligence when it comes to deciphering and mapping the fields in Excel vs Jama database fields in order to make the Excel RoundTrip experience user experience more fluid and streamlined.

    The only work-around that I can think of is to create an Excel VBA macro embedded in the Excel export template that you can run before importing so that a new import worksheet is created with Name always appear in a certain column, followed by Description, etc, etc. I have not done this before. So this is just planting an idea.

    Good luck.

    swoo
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    edited June 2016
    Swoo! Always with the VBA macros ;) But it's definitely a good thought. I wish Round Trip were smart enough of a feature to avoid this sort of thing, though. And you're right; it is time to remind Jama about the need for saving configurable views as well as making the wizard more intelligent.

    Joon, I'm going to update this thread from a "Problem" to an "Idea" to reflect that it is not something Jama is capable of doing today, but is something you would like to see in the future.
    In terms of your question "As it is, when I change my own view for that item type, my own field mapping also has to be updated. Is this meant to work this way for a reason?" The meaning behind what you describe isn't to force you to update your field mappings, but it reflects how inflexible the field mapping upon import is. You ought to be able to configure your view of the item type at your whim. Depending on what you need to update and how many fields are in your item type, you may not want to export everything at once. I've talked to users who have 100 fields in an item type, so it makes sense that they can configure their view to just a handful of fields for export. I agree that it is inconvenient that the user cannot then use a saved mapping, but at this point the feature is geared more towards configurability than efficiency.

    I'm sorry that this is negatively affecting your team. I have one suggestion. Have you tried round trip exporting your item type in question from the single item view? This should export all of your fields* for that item type. You can then create a saved mapping based off of that single view of the item type. The one inconvenience is that your team would have to remember to configure their view of what they need to update to show all of the fields, but configuring all the fields to be visible is quicker and easier than updating a field mapping.

    *Note that if you export an item from single item view, it will export all fields unless it has a sub-item. If it has a sub-item, it will export the main item's fields dependent upon what fields are configured in the Sub Items tab—so you'd need to make sure all fields are visible there.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    edited September 2016
    Hi Bob,

    I agree with you.

    I like your tip.

    For those people who may not be familiar with Excel, you can select the header row, and then "past special" with "Transpose" option set.

    Have a good day.

    swoo

    image
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    edited June 2016
    Hey Bob, that's a great tip! Thanks! Swoo, thanks for clarifying where to find it.
  • Joon Chang
    Joon Chang
    edited October 2015
    Thanks for the tip. My main problem is with inconsistency in the order the columns are exported and how the saved import field mapping is jumbled.  This seems to happen even when exporting a single item.   I'll give transpose paste a shot and see if that helps.  Thanks all.
  • Vladimir Cech
    Vladimir Cech
    edited October 2016
    This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Copy filed mapping for import between projects.

    Hi,


    We have tool which creates Excel file with Test Cases. This Excel File can be imported to Contour and Contour creates/updates Test Cases. I have saved 'field mapping' which is used by Contour to mapping Excel columns to Contour fields. But we need same 'field
    mapping' for several projects.

    Would it be possible to copy 'field mapping' between different Contour projects.

    Currently we had to create 'field mapping' for new project manually
    by hand. This is not practical and foolproof way how to do it.

    Thank you for considering this idea.
    Vlada
    Vlada
  • Jamey Potechin
    Jamey Potechin
    I'd like to echo the request to be able to save field mappings across projects. We have a customized test case that is used across scores of projects, and it looks like we need to repeat the field mapping exercise for every single project. I'd like to be able to define a public mapping that could be shared across all projects.

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