Importing Faceplate Equipment into Areas via DDR

 
This section will review all steps and available options available when importing Equipment object into an Area via the DDR Import Wizard.
 
Note that the focus will be on specific options and features available for this particular use case, while the common details already described in detail in the introductory topic will be covered briefly.
 
When importing Equipment to be placed into an Area the user will need to define the following fields in an CSV import file:
Field Name
Description
Area
The name of the Area within which the Equipment will be placed eg. Building 1 Floor 1
Type Name
The name of the Equipment Type as defined in the Equipment Type database e.g. Nordx 2 Port Cat6 Faceplate
Name
The equipment name to help identify the Equipment being imported. e.g. WA0001/A
Instance Lifecycle Stage
The lifecycle stage to be assigned to the imported Equipment, e.g. 'Deployed'
Place By Value
The Place By Value is used to identify how and where the equipment being imported will be placed within an Area and can contain or reference any of the following values:
  • Text String
  • Space Name
  • Location Name
  • Equipment Name
 
The following is a worked example showing how to import faceplates to Text String located in the Imported CAD File:
1

Example Imported CAD File for Area named "Building1 Floor 1":

2

Example CSV File to Import "Nordx 2 Port Cat6 Faceplate" to the highlighted Text Strings shown in the imported CAD file:

Area
Type Name
Name
Instance Lifecycle Stage
Place By Value
Building 1 Floor 1
Nordx 2 Port Cat6 Faceplate
WA001/A
Deployed
WA001/A
Building 1 Floor 1
Nordx 2 Port Cat6 Faceplate
WA002/A
Deployed
WA002/A
Building 1 Floor 1
Nordx 2 Port Cat6 Faceplate
WA003/A
Deployed
WA003/A
Building 1 Floor 1
Nordx 2 Port Cat6 Faceplate
WA004/A
Deployed
WA004/A
Building 1 Floor 1
Nordx 2 Port Cat6 Faceplate
WA005/A
Deployed
WA005/A
Building 1 Floor 1
Nordx 2 Port Cat6 Faceplate
WA006/A
Deployed
WA006/A
 
Download Example CSV
3

Select source data

Upload the .csv file and leave the default selected Equipment object type for import in the first step of the DDR Import Wizard. Click on Next button to proceed for the next step.
4

Specify Import Parameters

Specify the CSV Identity Mode and the CSV Identity Mode by clicking on one of the radio buttons:
 
Setting the CSV Identity value specifies how the data from the CSV records is matched against existing IRM objects. Note that, in addition to None and Name, for Equipment object types there are additional CSV Identity Modes available for selection:
Identity Mode
Description
Serial Number
The CSV data must have a column mapped to the IRM serialNum field. If not, the server returns an error. All Import Mode values are possible.
Asset Number 1 or 2
The CSV data must have a column mapped to the IRM assetNum field. If not, the server returns an error. All Import Mode values are possible.
Serial Number and Asset Number 1 or 2
The CSV data must have columns mapped to both serialNum and assetNum1 (or assetNum2) fields. This is an "AND" condition, where both fields have to match. If not, the server returns an error. All Import Mode values are possible.
Name
The CSV data must have a column mapped to the IRM name field. If not, the server returns an error. All Import Mode values are possible.
None
This means there is no attempt to match the CSV records against existing IRM objects. The only valid Import Mode is Create Only
 
Setting the CSV Import value specifies whether new objects are created from the CSV data or existing IRM objects are overwritten by matching CSV objects. Please refer to the introductory topic for more details about what each Import Mode means.
For this example, we will leave the None and Create Only default values for import parameters.
 
IMPORTANT: Successful matching is critical in order to do updates of existing objects and to avoid creating duplicated objects. The difference between Overwrite and Patch is that Overwrite updates the entire target object, whereas Patch only updates the fields explicitly supplied in the CSV file.  In most cases, the Patch modes are more appropriate.
5

Source Data Placement

In this tab we specify what type of marker to search for in the CAD file (i.e. Place By Text)  and the column in the uploaded CSV that contains that value (i.e. Place By Value)
6

Column Mapping

This tab is used to map the additional data columns for Area, Type Name, Name and Instance Lifecycle Stage.
    
Note: When the column name in the CSV matches the column name in the Wizard, the fields will be auto-mapped.
 
WARNING: Duplication checking can be computationally expensive when large DDR files are imported into a Site with large numbers of Equipment objects (hundreds of thousands or more).
7

DDR Import Results

Notice the Equipment is placed exactly at the text String specified in the CSV Import File:
 
Note: The user can specify an X or Y offset value in the Source Data Placement tab which can be used to specify an offset from the text string.
 
If we re-imported the same CSV file but this time specify an X Offset of -12 the results would be appear as follows:

 
Note: by specifying an offset of -12 the imported faceplates are moved 12inches  to the left.
 
IMPORTANT: In case when the DDR import includes multiple types of placement in a single operation, the critical Equipment characteristics, such as IsRackMountable, IsRailMountable, IsSubcomponent) must be set correctly in order for the code to understand what kind of placement it should be trying to do. If otherwise, the application will return the "PlaceBy object not found" error message.