windEPAF / Blog: Recent posts

In addition to generating template spreadsheets and dumping out previous EPAF imports, windEPAF can also generate a populated spreadsheet base on the results of a query. So if you want to give a raise to all temporary employees who are under 26 years old, female and single; windEPAF can help you do that. Warning, your HR department may frown on this. But perhaps this tool can be used for good as well as evil. ... read more

In the previous post we looked at how windEPAF exports a template spreadsheet for users to fill out and then import using epaf_export.py and epaf_import.py respectively. Now we will examine the third component of windEPAF that allows us to produce a fully populated spreadsheet ready to be modified and imported.

So the question is, "why would you want to do this?" One reason is that you may have just imported a batch of EPAFs and once they were imported you realize you need to make a change. If you like monotony, you can always visit dozens or even hundreds of EPAFs making the same change over and over. But since I have a severe allergic reaction to monotony, we can dump out a previous import into Excel, fix the problem in a few seconds and update the original EPAFs by re-importing our spreadsheet. ... read more

Despite what your Ellucian/SunGard Banner sales rep might have told you, bulk importing EPAFs from Excel is no easy process. Going straight from a spreadsheet into Banner is almost impossible to do. Actually multiple spreadsheets are involved because a single EPAF translates into dozens of records in three required tables (NOBTRAN, NORTRAN and NORROUT) and three optional tables (NORTERN, NORTLBD and NORCMNT). And the transaction number that ties all of these entries into a single record must be carefully maintained across all spreadsheets and must not conflict with EPAF users in INB and self-service that both write to these tables as well. And Banner allows users to define an infinite number of EPAF categories, each with its own definition of tables and columns it will write to and which fields are editable or defaulted in. It all adds up to a perfect configuration nightmare. ... read more