Create multiple requests in the Client from an Excel file
Note: This functionality is currently only supported in the Aeon Desktop Client and cannot be performed from the Aeon Web Client.
Overview
Aeon 4.0 introduced a feature in the Aeon Desktop Client to create bulk requests for a user or activity from an Excel spreadsheet. This feature is available on the user and activity forms from the button labels "New Requests from File". On the user form, the 'New Request' is now a split button with two dropdown options: New Request for User and New Requests from File.
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The original behavior of creating a new request for the user still works by either clicking the top half of the button or by choosing the 'New Request for User' dropdown option. Note that the New Requests button on the activity form will be disabled if there are no users associated with the activity because you must be able to specify the user that will own the requests.
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Once you click on the New Requests from File button, you'll be prompted to select the Excel file that has the data for the requests you'll create. The data expectations of the Excel file are specified later in this document. Once you've selected the Excel file, you'll be shown a grid of the request data that was loaded and be able to select who the requests will be created for.
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When using this feature from the user form, the dropdown will only contain the name of that user. From the activity form, you may select any user associated with the activity. From this form, you can make changes to the data in the grid before clicking the Create Requests button. If there are any problems with the spreadsheet data, an error message will detail the problems with each row.
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Data Expectations
The first row of the spreadsheet should be the request field names. If a field name in the spreadsheet does not correspond to a request field, it will be reported when trying to load the spreadsheet. Request fields may be omitted if you don't need to set their values.
You must use the field names as assigned in the Aeon database. You may have customized your views in the Client to rename fields. Aeon Database Tables contains the list of tables and field name used in the database.
Custom Fields
As of Aeon 5.2, values can be set for Transaction type custom fields defined in the CustomFieldDefinitions table. The column name for each Transaction custom field in the spreadsheet should match the short name for the field in the CustomFieldDefinitions table.
User and Activity type custom fields are not supported for use with this feature.
Data Validation
When the requests are created, some fields will always be created automatically by the system.
| Username | Set to the username specified in the user dropdown |
|---|---|
| CreationDate | Set to the current time |
| TransactionStatus | Set to Submitted by Staff initially, and will then be routed to an appropriate starting status (Awaiting Request Processing, Awaiting Future Request Processing, Awaiting Activity Processing, or Submitted by User) |
| TransactionDate | Set to the current time |
| DocumentType | Set to 'Default' |
| ActivityID | Will be set to the appropriate activity when creating requests from the activity form. |
The following fields are ignored when creating the requests:
| TransactionNumber | This value is assigned by Aeon when the request is created. |
|---|---|
| PhotoduplicationDate | This field is either assigned the current time if you specify a photoduplication status, or null if not. |
With the exception of DocumentType and ActivityID, all of the fields that are initialized will ignore any value specified in the spreadsheet. ActivityID may be specified when creating the requests for a User but will be overwritten when creating requests from the Activity Form.
The following validation rules are applied to each row of the spreadsheet data:
| Site | Must correspond to an existing site code (based on the Sites table) |
|---|---|
| ResearcherUsername | Must correspond to an existing user who is a researcher for the user the request is being created for (defined in the proxy links). Additionally, you cannot provide both a ResearcherUsername and ActivityID for the same request; a request may not be associated with both a researcher and an activity at the same time. |
| PhotoduplicationStatus | This value may be specified by either the queue name or queue ID. |
| ForPublication | Must be empty or 'Yes' or 'No'. |
| ScheduledDate | This must be either empty or specified in 'yyyy-mm-dd' format. |
The following fields must be either an integer or empty:
- ActivityID
- BundleID
- InternalAcctNo
- InvoiceNumber
- PageCount
In the case of photoduplication requests (that is, requests that have specified a PhotoduplicationStatus), the following fields are also validated:
| Format | Must correspond to a valid billing default for the format context. |
|---|---|
| ShippingOption | Must correspond to a valid billing default for the shipping option context. |
| ServiceLevel | Must correspond to a valid billing default for the service level context. |