Rules for Excel Workbook

The class library content has to be provided in a Microsoft Excel 2007-2013 (*.xslx) workbook format. The workbook may be provided as a single file in a zip archive.

Sheet names and column headers (row 1) are not case sensitive.

The reader will look for sheet names that it recognizes, and recognized column headers in those sheets, to extract the class library content.

All sheets are optional, but if some are missing the resulting Class Library model might not constitute a consistent Class Library model.

Sheet names, or column names, that are not recognized will be ignored.

The sheets might be distributed over multiple workbooks, which can be loaded in sequence to extend the same Class Library model instance.

Required column headers that cannot be found will be reported on.

Rows not containing a value in a required column will be reported on.

Some columns may be constrained to only contain values in certain ranges (for example, Y/N, or true/false). Violation of such constraints will be reported on.

Rows containing empty cells only will be ignored.

Empty cells will be ignored, unless it represents a required value.

When loading a workbook into an existing Class Library model, cells containing the text {null} will clear the corresponding property in the resulting Class Library model.

The order of the sheets in the workbook, and the order of the columns in a sheet, are not significant.

All rows in all sheets might include a column _ACTION, where certain values will have specific meaning:

• Ignore: The corresponding spread sheet row will be ignored.

• Note: The corresponding spread sheet row is considered to contain a note, and will therefore be ignored.

• Delete: When loading into an existing Class Library model, the definition corresponding to current row will be deleted. If no such definition exists, the row will be ignored.

• Other values in this column will be reported on.