Best Practice suggestions to reduce published import action buttons ??
We have two models across which we need to import data by versions (Actual and forecast) and product category, as different categories are managed by different heads.
The actual data needs to be imported by month, and forecast data needs to be imported once.
We are planning to provide data Import to these head users through action buttons on dashboards .
Now, due to the sheer number of product categories, the number of import action buttons which we will need to publish is huge.
For example if we have 10 categories, then we will need to publish 10x12 + 10 = 130 Action buttons on the dashboard(12 Actual months imports for 10 categories and 1 forecast import for each category).
Any suggestions on how this can be done more efficiently to provide a better user experience?
Answers
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Hi,
You can use "ASK EACH TIME IMPORT IS RUN" option. This will reduce the number of actions needed.
Regards,
Vignesh M
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Thank you Vignesh. For Actuals, we wanted to manage which month is a valid month, so that as admin we can ensure that for example in the month of Apr, only Apr is visible to be imported. Giving end users the option to choose time period for import may defy that purpose. Can we restrict the time period without publishing separate import action button.0
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Use Dynamic Cell Access to control write access on time period. Give only write access to APR month and use ask each time import option.
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A few thoughts
1. Do you have selective access on for the heads? If you do, they a single import will suffice because they will not be able to import to elements to which to do not have access
2. Can you set the valid month in the source through an admin task?. You can then filter out the source data meaning no need to have 12 imports or even choose which month.
3. Is is a possibility to run the import on a schedule (so eliminate the buttons completely)? As 2, you could control which elements come across from the source. We often do this to "schedule" the import/export of completed parts of the model. Even if nightly is too long a wait, you could schedule the import even 15 mins. Only those ready to export that have not already been exported would be picked up in the filter making the imports efficient. This is a really critical point to consider for user run imports. We should make the exports/imports as small (therefore as fast) as possible to minimise user disruption through the blocking actions
I hope this helps
David
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