Import Formats

Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

Understand the purpose of an import format
Create a simple Import Format from an Excel file

Overview of Import Formats

In the previous lesson, we saw how to import customer data from an existing spreadsheet. But how does the system know how to map the fields on the inbound file? In this lesson, we’ll give an overview of the components of an import format and show how to configure a basic import format from a spreadsheet.

An Import Format is a wizard-like process that takes you through the steps to configure data imports. There are two types of import formats: user defined and standard. User defined import formats allow you to define a custom format for data from inbound files. These files can be a number of formats, including:

Plain text files, including delimited or fixed-length file formats
Excel spreadsheet files
Database queries

Standard import formats allow you to use one of the standard prepackaged XML formats or preprocessors.

The image below shows the creation of a user defined import format from an Excel spreadsheet.

Select the link 'Introducing Data Import Formats in SAP Agent Performance Management' to get more information.

To configure a user defined import format:

Create the new import format and select User Defined.
Configure the import field list.
Customize the field mappings, if needed.
Activate the import format.

Field Mapping

Field Mapping allows you to customize the way incoming data is mapped to fields in APM. There are three types of mapping: straight field mapping, expression mapping, and hardcoded mapping.

Straight Field Mapping indicates that the target field is directly populated with the unaltered value of a source field. Use this type of mapping when the source value should be directly loaded into the target field. Use the Auto Map action to automatically map source and target fields that share the same name.

To create a Straight Field Mapping, select and drag one of the Imported Fields and drop it in the Mapping column against the entity field to map.

Expression Mapping indicates that the target field should be populated based on the result of an expression, such as a calculation or condition.
To create an Expression Mapping, select and drag the expression input from the Custom Inputs and drop it in the Mapping column against the entity field to map. Then, select the Window icon in the Action column to access the Expression editor. The Value column gets updated as the expression is edited to give the user an idea of the value returned by the expression.

Hardcoded Mapping indicates that the target field should be populated with a hardcoded value. Use this mapping when all records generated should contain the same hardcoded value.
To create a Hardcoded Mapping, drag the Simple Text input from the Custom inputs and drop it in the mapping column against the entity field to map. Then, enter the value that should be used to populate the entity field.

Exercise: Create a user defined import format

ExerciseStart Exercise

In this exercise, we will create a user defined import format to import a list of brokers.

Steps

Create a new User Defined Import Format
1. In the Portal menu, navigate toIntegration → Configuration and select Import Format Search.
2. Select Add (+) to add an Import Format detail.
3. Leave the Import Format at User Defined and select Next.
4. Populate the Import Format Detail fields using the following field descriptions:
  - ImportFormatId: BrokerImport
  - Name: Broker Import
  - InEntName: InBroker
  - File Type: MS Excel
  - Header Rows: 1
  - Sample File: Select Choose File and upload the file BrokerImport.xlsx.
5. Select Next to continue to the next screen.
6. Select Next again on the Import Format screen.
Customize Field Mappings
1. Select the Automatically Map Imported Fields icon.
2. The Broker Status field is not on the import file, but we want to set default value of the field to Active using the Simple Text data source:
  - Select the Simple Text data source in the upper right corner.
  - Drag Simple Text over the 5th column on the BrokerStatus row.
  - Type 1 in the text field and press Enter.
    Note
    "1" is the code for Active.
3. Select Complete.
4. Select Activate.
Using the steps from the previous exercise, import the Broker Import.xlsx file.
1. Create an inbound data file called BrokerImport.
2. Set the Payout ID to CLIENT Payout.
3. Set the Process Year to 2022.
4. Set the Process Month to 6.
5. Set the Date Effective to 1/1/2022.
6. Scroll to the Import Requests section and select Add Import Request.
7. Set the Import Format to BrokerImport.
8. Set the Upload Type to Client.
9. Select Choose Content and select the BrokerImport.XLSX file.
10. Select Next.
11. Select Complete.
12. When the import is complete, select Ready, then Post.

Next lesson