About Linking Excel Spreadsheets

Information in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet can be combined with extracted data from drawings.

By linking to an Excel spreadsheet, you can include information from an entire worksheet, or part of a worksheet, referred to as a named range. Using the Link External Data dialog box, you can:

• Specify a data link by selecting an XLS file to which the extracted data from the drawing will be linked
• Match the extracted drawing data and the spreadsheet data
• Select the columns in the XLS file to merge with the extracted drawing data

On the Refine Data page, you access the Link External Data dialog box; you can set up a link to an entire Excel spreadsheet, or to a range of rows and columns, to the extracted data.

Before you can link a spreadsheet, Microsoft Excel needs to be installed on the same computer on which the data extraction is performed. If Microsoft Excel is not installed, or if the XLS file is not saved locally on the computer that is performing the data extraction, a data link cannot be established.

If a linked spreadsheet has been changed, such as a row or column has been added, the table in your drawing can be updated accordingly using the DATALINKUPDATE command. Likewise, if a change is made to the table in the drawing, the linked spreadsheet can be updated using the same command.

Note: To delete a data link, use the DATALINK command. You cannot delete a data link from the External References Palette.

Understand Data Linking and Matching

Data linking is the process of selecting a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with the purpose of merging all or some of its contents with extracted drawing data. See Link a Table to External Data for more information about data linking.

Data matching creates a relationship between two sets of data; the data in a column from the extracted drawing data and the data in a column from an Excel spreadsheet.

For example, you have a simple bill of materials (BOM). Three columns of data are extracted from a drawing. These columns contain data for: Part #, Revision, and Quantity. You want to include two additional columns of data in the BOM from a spreadsheet. These columns contain data for Cost and Supplier.

In this example, the spreadsheet contains a column of part numbers labeled Catalog Number that matches the Part Number column in the extracted data. In the Link External Data dialog box , you select Part # as the column for the drawing data and Catalog Number as the column for the external data. Because there is at least one cell of matching data in the drawing data column and the external data column, the data extraction feature “knows” how both sources are tied together.

You can test if the data matching is valid by clicking the Check Match button from the Link External Data dialog box. If the match is unsuccessful, a warning message indicates what the problem is. In some situations, the drawing data might not link correctly to the data in the spreadsheet.

Validate Matched Data

The data matching validation process fails when it cannot find a valid match between the drawing data and external data (spreadsheet). The following error messages will display:

No match was found between any values in the drawing data and external data.

• If the problem is not resolved, the external data will not be merged. Compare the spreadsheet column data to the drawing data column for any matching values. For example, the numerical data in the drawing data may be set to a different precision level than in the external data.

The data column in the external data does not contain unique values.

• The data in the external data column contains one or more cells that contain identical data. This condition makes it so that one match cannot be configured between the drawing data and the external data.