Importing Excel Documents with MDG Integration Office

[Andre_b_b]

Hi, i am trying to make some imports from Excel to EA and i am doing it with MDG Intregration Office, but i did not manage to import elements inside another element, for example, put an action inside an activity in an automatic way. Can you help me?
André Boggio

[Andre_b_b]

Does anyone have an idea about this? Is the question not clear? I can explain, if needed.

[steen.jensen]

Should be the same for both MDG Office and CSV files, the element parent & child relation, at least in the element_browser. Diagraming from mdg is more or less crap

[Andre_b_b]

Thank you for your answer, Steen Jensen. I do have some problems win importing. I did not manage to do it with CSV Files, because i do not know the specification. When i put "Parent Element Name" it does not work. In fact, my idea is, for example, generate a diagram with activites that are related and inside each activity i would like to generate another diagram with subfunctions(Activities). Do you think it is possible to do it with MDG? If yes, how could i arrange my Excel File to achieve this?
Thank you for your attention

[BobM]

Its eerie that it is difficult to find written documentation
I don't think a lot of users on this forum use the office MDG, hence the low response

I did find some demo on the subject, I hope the content will resolve the problem: https://sparxsystems.com/products/mdg/int/office/index.html#demos
Else I suggest you ask for assistance from Sparx support (Where I hope they will not redirect to the MDG creators)

[Andre_b_b]

Hi Bob, thank for your participation. I agree with you: it is difficult to find informations about this tool, even though i think it is a good tool, in order to reduce the work of programmation in the software - i have been working with EA for 2 months and i am still getting to know all the functions of the software. It is a good sugestion to contact the assistance from Sparx Support, because, unfortunately, the material provided is not enough to build reliable diagrams and models. I have already visited the website and the tutorials :/ I am sure that we, the users, we will manage to generate good content in order to increase the utilisation of MDG and it will become easier to use it.

[Richard Freggi]

Andre, the 1st issue is that 'an element inside another element' is not a valid UML concept, so you will need to define what you need conform to UML.  For example you could specify UML aggregation, composition, inheritance or nesting or something else.
As 2nd issue, now that you know what you need to import, set up the import using the appropriate connector stereotype in the Office MDG.
You cannot import diagrams with the MDG, so if you want to show it in a diagram you will have to create the diagram manually after you import the element.

Good luck!

[steen.jensen]

When Office MDG is installed, you have an HelpLink with some useful but complicated userguides, för import/export of Excel and Word and some PowerPoint functions.
Regarding Object inside other object, (Im only using Archimate) is just matter of relation for object in browser(Parent/Child/package) and/or object relation as Association, Serving, acess etc etc.
When importing your excel you can select that a diagram is created for each package whera all object in each package are placed in lists or matrix depends on number of object. Same result as "insert related objects" in diagram.

For exampel, we have an excel with our Capability map, about 150 capabilityes (level 1-3 with descriptions)
Each layer has its own package object, and each capability have an parent object,
as Capability_6_level1 is parent for all capability_6_level2,
and Capability_6_level2 is parent for all Capability_6_level3

The diagram is manual layed out with Level3 inside parent Level2 and a separate diagram where level2 is placed inside level1
When the excel gets uppdated outside Sparx EA by Business architect, we just run an excel import with Office MDG for update av our capability maps. Those maps are html exported weekly to a internal website and are clickable on each level by all emplyees

[Andre_b_b]

Thanks Richard. Then, i guess that either i would have to use connectors or put elements inside others manually... I have managed to generate diagrams with connector making 2 imports:  1 a object profile, which i have added the elements and its parameters and the 2nd import is from a Connector Profile, using the GUID generated by the 1st import. For that, i wrote an information passed through the blocks and i used the SourceGUID and TargetGUID. With this, it is possible to build a good schema and localize the relation and informations exchanged in the process.