Excel Integration - Handling Server Updates
Introduction
This section describes a proposal for handling updates made to planned workflow deadlines on the DrawMGT server, which can be overwritten by the automatic plan date calculations in the Excel spreadsheet.
Plan Date Calculations
In the Excel spreadsheet, the plan date for a workflow step in a revision is calculated based on:
The plan date field associated with the following workflow step, or the T0 field for last workflow step
The delta field associated with the workflow step
Normally the plan date calculations are performed in the Excel spreadsheet and the results are stored in the DrawMGT database, where they can be viewed from a web browser. In the Excel spreadsheet, the plan dates fields are read-only fields and can only be changed indirectly by changing the T0 and delta fields.
It is also possible for users to use DrawMGT's web interface to make updates to a revision's plan dates and delta fields without regard to the calculations which should be performed. It is easily possible to create inconsistent data where the plan dates stored in the database do not match those that would be calculated from the T0 and delta fields.
When workflow information is read into the Excel spreadsheet the plan dates values from the database are ignored and values calculated in the spreadsheet are displayed instead. This can result in the loss of plan date data entered via the browser.