sections in the article
This article gives you an overview of the Excel export feature.
About excel exports and imports
inriver uses Microsoft Excel as a tool for mass updating entities where you can export data to and import data from Excel. You export all or selected entities in a work area to Excel and you can later import the same Excel document after changing the content.
Since Excel is a widely known and used tool to sort, structure, analyze, and manipulate large amounts of data, entities can easily be mass updated in Excel.
The Excel export and import features have basically the same functionality in the Rich Client and in the Web Portal, but there are some minor differences. Here we only show where you find the export and import features.
When working with Excel documents, there are some restrictions on which changes you can make and still be able to import the content of the file back into inriver. To get the right format, we recommend that you start by exporting an Excel file, make any changes or additions to that file before reimporting the file.
Read more about Excel imports in this article.
Excel export: web portal
The Excel export feature is found in the top-row navigation menu in Enrich. There are two places where you can do an Excel export, from a Work area or by using a Search result.
Exporting a work area
You can search for data in several ways, use saved searches or use saved entities from work area folders. Once you have populated a work area, you find the Excel export option in the navigation menu in the upper right corner of the work area.
Exporting a search result
Search results are also listed in the left-side frame in Enrich. The Excel export option is in the navigation menu above the list of entities in the search result, see screenshot below.
Excel export capabilities
Saved settings
When exporting to Excel you can choose to save your export settings by clicking Save as. Your settings will then be saved in a template that can be accessed through the Open saved setting drop-down menu. This is especially useful if you export the same type of data regularly.
You can edit one of these templates at any time by choosing the template in Open saved setting, making the changes and clicking Save.
Included entities
In general, the Excel export with related entities only include the entities that are directly linked. The export works with either one level up, down, or both ways in the hierarchy. For example Product -> Item, Product <- Item, or Product <- Item -> Resource.
When including an entity type that is higher up in the hierarchy, only the entities with that relation will be included. For example, if you export Product <- Resource, only Resources with a direct link to a channel will be included in the export.
You also have the option to select multiple entity types for the second level, e.g. Product -> Item and Product -> Resource.
Sorting order
Note that the sorting order differs depending on what inriver functionality you are using. For instance, in Content Store the field order is sorted alphabetically while in Enrich the field order follows the same order as in the model.
Excel export: rich client
In the Rich Client, the Excel export is found in the work area navigation menu. You can access the navigation menu by right-clicking any of the entities in the work area. Before you open the navigation menu, you can select any number of entities from the work area. You can either export all entities in the work area, or just the selected entities.
Good to know
Keep the below advice in mind when importing a modified Excel file back into inriver:
- Don't remove or rename the column headers in the first row, they are used for mapping columns to FieldTypes when importing.
- Don't remove the first column called sys_id, it is used for identifying the entity that should be updated when importing.
- Don't hide columns or rows.
- When removing columns or rows, remove them completely by selecting the entire column or row, then clicking Remove in the navigation menu.
- Don't add rows or columns that are not part of the information you are editing.
- Don't add other sheets to the Excel file (linked cell is not supported).
- When entering data into CVL fields, make sure you use the CVL Key (not the Value), and that the Key exists in the CVL.
- Excel export date format is based on browser's setting for language
Comments
11 comments
Hello Lotte Litjens are there any way to schedule an daily excel export to e-mail from the Web Portal? That would be great!
Hi Oskar Kuusela, can you elaborate on what you want to achieve or why you want to export the excel daily. In what way will it help you in your work. So that we can better understand to answer you in a good way :)
Have you seen and read Managing Notifications? This is a great article on how you can set up notifications to yourself also via email. From a dynamic Query/work area where you potentially then can download the results in excel.
Does that help? If not please elaborate your question 😊
Hello Nicky Lilja, inRiver holds information about products that are active (published) and inactive on our web. We have other systems and structured excel reports where we work and want to add that information on a daily basis. For example to follow which product we have in stock but not yet published. I'm exporting an excel-file manually from inRiver every day to achive this and it would help alot to receive it automatically instead.
Hi Oskar,
If Syndication is not an option, Iwould recommend you post a feature request here in Service Center, with an explanation of your use case:
https://servicecenter.inriver.com/hc/en-us/community/topics/360000497080-Feature-Requests-Functional
Thank you Steve! 😊 Oskar Kuusela I hope this answered your question and helped you to move forward. If you want to learn more about syndicate or how this would work, you can ask questions in the Product Q&A community Topic, there we have our Syndicate expert Johan Strand active and monitoring, who would be happy to help answering any questions around syndicate.
Keep up the great engagement Oskar !
Hello!
I have a question about related entities in an export.
Noticed today that if I query for all product families in a certain segment and export them with related parent entities (channel nodes and layout templates), I get less product families in the excel file than in my query since some families do not have the links to parent entities. As I read from this article, it's expected behaviour?
Additionally, "When including an entity type that is higher up in the hierarchy, only the entities with that relation will be included. For example, if you export Product <- Resource, only Resources with a direct link to a channel will be included in the export." <-- is the channel parameter here set in stone?
Thanks :)
Evelin
Is it possible to share an saved export settings with other users so that they can choose the settings from the drop down in the export dialogue as well? ?
Please clarify that you cannot export "Item" -> "Item" or "Product" -> "Product" relations, such as related products, accessories, or other LinkTypes that have the same EntityType.
@..., currently the export goes from the highest entity type and down, which I agree can be somewhat confusing sometimes for instance when some Items do not have a Product relationship, and thereby is excluded in the export. I think that some kind of setting in the export would be nice to have to set whether you want to include orphan Items or not. I push this question forward to our product team so they can check this with the backlog.
Filip Groß, unfortunately it is not possible to share saved export settings with other users. However, I think it would be nice addition to out product backlog. I push this question forward to our product team also for backlog curation.
Tobias Månsson, Yes, that is the case. The export feature currently include relations to other entity types, not same.
Ulrik Viebked Is sharing saved export settings still going to happen? I have an export file prepared, that should be used by a large team.
Hi Boaz,
I have seen the requirements around here, but unfortunately I don't know about where it is in the priorities with other requirements. I will check with Product Team and come back with an message as soon as I get any feedback.
Best regards
Ulrik Viebke, Business Solution Architect, inriver
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