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Excel Smartsheet Format

Smartsheets are a specialized Excel format with the ability to validate products before being imported into STEP. Typically, this format is used when maintaining product data or when initiating new products into STEP via the Supplier Web UI. If used to maintain product data, users can download a Smartsheet from the Supplier Web UI, and once the desired changes have been made, the data can be automatically validated in Excel. The Excel file can then be uploaded back into the Supplier Web UI. New products can also be initiated into STEP via predefined Smartsheet templates.

The data export and template configurations are created in the Export Manager, then added to the relevant template widgets and the export action in the Supplier Web UI. An import configuration should also be created and defined on the 'SmartSheetImportAction' in the Supplier Web UI (in case an import configuration is not specified in the export configuration).

For more information on configuring Smartsheet Web UI components, see the Smartsheets in Web UI section of the Web User Interfaces documentation here.

Important: Smartsheets are designed to be used from the Supplier Web UI only and using them out of this context will diminish their capabilities. Furthermore, future Smartsheet enhancements will most likely also depend on Web UI. Specifically, objects should not be exported to Excel Smartsheets from the STEP Workbench. Smartsheet templates exported from STEP Workbench will not be able to correct supplier linking of products created during import and will also provide different browsing capabilities. A maintenance Smartsheet exported from the STEP Workbench will not contain any information about workflow and state, so it will not be able to supply information about workflow mandatory columns. In addition, any business rules regarding the current workflow will be unavailable during import. It will also supply a different set of possible targets when maintaining product cross-references.

Note that the Smartsheet format and Supplier Web UI may require special licenses to use. Ask your Stibo account manager for more information.

Important: Though still available, the Quicksheet concept has been deprecated. The use of Smartsheets is recommended.

Setup Requirements

Before Smartsheets can be downloaded from the Supplier Web UI and/or imported into STEP, some initial configuration steps are required.

  1. In Export Manager, create a Smartsheet data export and/or template configuration as described in Creating Smartsheet Data and Template Configurations here.
  2. In Import Manager, create an import configuration as described in Smartsheet Import Configurations here.
  3. In the Supplier Web UI, configure the Smartsheet Import Action as described in the Smartsheet Import Action section of the Web User Interfaces documentation here.
  4. In the Supplier Web UI, configure the Smartsheet Export Action as described in the Smartsheet Export Action section of the Web User Interfaces documentation here.
  5. In the Supplier Web UI, configure the Smartsheet Export Widget as described in the Smartsheet Export Widget section of the Web User Interfaces documentation here.

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