ExcelTamer
The ExcelTamer brings back order into altered EXCEL templates, which cannot be imported without causing any errors.
It assigns unknown sheet and column names to the correct names using an alias list. Missing sheets and column names are
added also, if possible.
Data Systems
An Excel template is divided into three systems.
- Ingest Data
- Lookup Data
- TaxonWizard Data
Ingest Data
Ingest data is the actual research data. The tables are e.g. the following: Cruise, Station, Sample, Subset, Biota,
Sediment, ...

Lookup Data
The lookup tables contain the entries for the lookup tables of the database. The tables are for example the following:
Person, Gear, Dataset, CRS, ...

TaxonWizard Data
These tables contain data of the administration tables, which are used by the TaxonWizard to build and check the taxon
list. The tables are e.g. the following: TaxBase, TaxAaid, TaxPrivate, ...

Uniqueness of Names
Case sensitivity
All names are checked at import case sensitive, but are also all unique in lowercase.
Sheets
The sheet names of the three systems are unique for the whole EXCEL Workbook.
Columns
The column names (header) are unique for each sheet.
Aliases
For all sheets and columns there are alias lists, for which the same uniqueness applies.
Short Description of the Taming Process
Here follows a short description of the algorithm.
Phase 1 - Catch Unknown Names and Tame Using Aliases
- Run through all sheets from EXCEL workbench
- Resolve all sheet names not found using an alias list
- Change the sheet names
- Run through all headers of the all sheets
- Resolve all headers not present using an alias list.
- Change the header names
- Log all changes
- ... especially all unrecognized sheets in list: sheets_untamebale
- ... especially all unrecognized headers in list: header_untamebale
Phase 2 - Add Missing Things
- Run through all sheets requierd for a valid template
- If a sheet is missing in workbench and the sheets_untamebale list is empty: Add it to Workbench
(including all required headers)
- If a sheet is missing in workbench and the sheets_untamebale list is not empty: It cannot be added
safely, because if the sheet could be in list sheets_untamebale (e.g. with an unrecognized typo). This
could "unnoticeably" exclude all data in it from the following import. Taming is not possible!
- Run through all headers from all sheets requierd by a valid template
- If a header is missing in a sheet in workbench and the header_untamebale list is empty: Add it
- If a header is missing in a sheet in workbench and the header_untamebale
list is not empty: It cannot be added safely, because the header in question (e.g. with unrecognized typo) could be
in list header_untamebale. This could "unnoticeably" exclude all data from this column from the following
import. Taming is not possible!