Working with Save Maps
Use Save Maps to link your environment fields to Excel cells for data that will be saved back to your environment. Save Maps often rely on Display Maps (see Working with Display Maps). You use Save Actions in your app to implement Save Maps.
Saving Data to your Environment
X-Author for Excel supports updates, inserts, upserts, and deletes.
Updates
Save Maps can be designed to update records in your environment in three ways:
- Records were retrieved from your environment and the data from one or more fields in that record were placed on the worksheet through a Display Map. Using the Add Display Map Fields function in a Save Map, user modifications to any cell can be updated on the record.
- Using the Add Other Fields function to save data from one or more fields that were not retrieved from your environment. It is not recommended to update fields to the environment using this function, but if you do update in this way, you must always include a Record ID in the same row as the fields you are updating.
- Using the Add Matrix Map Section function in a Save Map,
modifications to matrix map sections can be updated on the record.Note:
Add Matrix Map Section is not supported in Apttus Omni.
Inserts
New records can be created in three ways:
- When a user adds a new data row using the Add Row menu button.
- When the App automatically adds a new data row using the Add row Action and pastes data into the new row.
- Using a Preloaded Grid (see Creating Preloaded Grids).
Deletes
Rows can be deleted from Display Map lists by the user clicking the Delete Rows from the environment menu button. To delete one or more records from a List, the Display Delete Row must be checked in User Menus and there must be a Save Map with at least one field in it.
Working with Save Maps
How many Save Maps you use is dependent on app design and how many save options you have for the user at runtime. Remember the following when working with Save Maps:
- There is no limit to the number of Save Maps you can have in an app. Multiple Save Maps allows you to control which fields are updated when the user clicks a menu button associated with a specific save process.
- A Save Map can include fields from any number of objects.
- A Save Map can be used across multiple worksheets (not workbooks).
To create a Save Map for Display Map Fields
To create a Display Map for Other Fields
To delete an existing Save Map
You cannot delete Save Maps that are used in a Save action.
- Click Save Map.
- From the list of existing Save Maps, select one and click Delete.
Creating Preloaded Grids
When your save requirements require something more complex than a list, you can use a Preloaded Grid with your Save Map. A Preloaded Grid can only be used to add new records. For example, you might have a six-row-by-three-column grid with three rows of formulas and an empty row between each. The formulas recalculate based on values elsewhere in the workbook. You want each of the three rows to be inserted as records each time the input values change and the user clicks Save.
To create a Preloaded Grid
- In a Save Map, click on Show Preloaded Grid.
- In the Preloaded Grid window, select the List Object for which you are creating the grid.
- Enter the number of rows for the Preloaded Grid.
- Click the check mark when finished. The object will now have an identifier in brackets for the number of rows added. To change the number of rows, enter in a new number in Preloaded Rows.
- Click Save.