Thanks to graan19 for a project that started during hackathon, we have a new Excel plugin ready for customer beta.
This is now in open beta and you can find installation instructions on the help page.
New goodness included in this release are:
- Support of Excel 2016 and Office 365
- Works on Macs and Windows
- Works with WSAPI 2.x, which means it supports Milestones, Risks, etc.
Getting Started
The new Excel plugin is currently in limited beta. If you are interested in trying it out, you can find the directions here: https://docs.ca.com/en-us/ca-agile-central/saas/excel-2016-installation-user-guide. You can continue to use the old Excel plugin while trying out the new plugin if needed, but queries created in the old plugin will not be automatically moved to the new plugin.
Using SSO
If your subscription is set up to use SSO, when you login to the new Excel plugin, you can just enter your username with no password and you'll be automatically redirected to your SSO site. Please note, your subscription must be set to Automatically redirect to IDP to use SSO. Check with your Subscription Administrator if you are not redirected.
Supported Excel Versions
The new Excel plugin will only work on versions of Excel 2016 and beyond, and for Office 365.
Feedback
To provide feedback on what does and doesn't work, you can use the feedback button at the top of the plugin.
Import
For importing, select the Project scoping and Type for your import. The add-in will then display the required fields for the selected Type and Project Scope.
The items to be imported must be in table format, so if you have a lot of required fields, it may be easier to use the export option for your selected Type first so you have the column headers.
After you have a table populated with the items you wish to import, you can validate the data for errors. Once it has passed validation you will have the ability to import the data into Agile Central.
When your import has completed you will have the option to undo the import which will send all the items you just imported to the recycle bin in Agile Central.
Importing with the new plugin is different with regard to associating imported items with other items. This now means using Formatted ID instead of name for the existing item.
Export
For exporting, select the Project scoping and Type. You can use the column selector to determine which fields you wish to export, and any columns that show a down arrow next to them will let you choose nested attributes on that type. For example, the arrow next to Blocker means that typing "Blocker" followed by a period in the column selector will let you see the nested attributes on Blocker that you can display. To select multiple attributes without having to type the root field name each time, hold the shift and click to select additional attributes.
After you have set your Project scoping, Type, Columns, Filters, and Result Limit, you will have the option to save your query parameters to use again later.
Conditions + Expressions
To use conditions and expressions, scroll down to the Filters section. First add one or more conditions, then you can use the Expression field to choose how to apply the conditions to the results.
For date specific fields (like Accepted Date), you can select Tokens to match relative dates like Today, Yesterday, etc which will filter on a different day depending on when the query is run.
Target Sheet
The target sheet by default will be set to New Sheet, meaning that any time a query is run, it will open a new sheet. You can change this to select an existing sheet, which will cause the resulting data to overlay previously exported data.
Refresh
The Refresh tab will give you the option to refresh the exported data in one or more sheets. This only impacts your export sheets and will not re-import sheets.
FAQ
Can I run the old Excel plugin while testing out the new plugin?
Yes, you can use both plugins without issue.
Will my queries from the old Excel plugin automatically move over to the new plugin?
No, you will have to recreate queries in the new plugin.