Bulk loading EPAFs using windEPAF

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.

But you probably already knew that importing EPAFs from Excel was error prone and enormously difficult, otherwise you wouldn't be here reading this. So when my users told me they wanted to be able to import EPAFs from a single row on a spreadsheet, I knew I had an interesting challenge ahead. The first problem to address was the configuration issue. Rather than trying to configure a myriad of EPAF categories, we essentially eliminate configuration by using a reference EPAF as a template.