IBM TRIRIGA object map

To use a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with workflow tasks that copy data into or out of it, the spreadsheet must contain a worksheet named Tririga Object Map. The rows of this worksheet specify how to map values from the Excel spreadsheet into records or vice versa. The relationships specified in this worksheet between data in Excel spreadsheets and data in records are collectively called a mapping. The following figure shows an example of an IBM® TRIRIGA® object map.

The first non-empty column of each row determines the purpose served by the rest of the columns in the row. For example, if the first column in a mapping row contains the value Field, then the row contains information on how the value of a particular cell or cells in the Excel spreadsheet map to a field in a record. This value in the first non-empty value of a mapping row is called the row's tag. In the previous example, one could just refer to the Field tag.

Empty rows in the worksheet are ignored, as are empty cells before the tag on each row. On a given row, the meaning of cells after the tag depends on the type of tag for that row. The cells to the right of a row's tag are called property cells, because they refer to the properties that define a particular tag. Each tag defines some number of property cells, whose position is relative to the tag cell. For example, if the tag that defines three properties is in column C, the properties for the tag will be in columns D, E, and F. If the tag were in column A, the properties would be in columns B, C, and D.

Some tags in the mapping worksheet have a corresponding end tag. This mechanism serves to enclose other tags between the given tag and its corresponding end tag, giving the mapping a hierarchical structure. Mapping in either direction starts with a root row. Various tags in the mapping let the mapping engine navigate to other objects related to the root through associations. Nesting these tags allows navigation through multiple association hops. This document refers to parent and child rows to describe these relationships. For example: if we follow an association from the root row to row A, the root row is the parent of row A and row A is a child of the root row. If we then follow an association from the row A to row B, A is the parent of B and B is the child of A.

All tag, object, field, association names, and the like are case sensitive.