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Jeff Lynch [MVP]

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BizTalk Server 2006: Excel Parser Update

As many of you will remember, I've been on a quest to find a reasonably priced Excel parser for BizTalk Server 2004 and 2006. I'm currently working with a very well known .NET component development company to create an Excel Disassembler Pipeline Component that will parse an Excel worksheet into XML for further processing by BizTalk Server. The developer working on this is getting pretty close and I need YOUR HELP in determining what features should be included with this parser.

If you've worked with the Flat-file parser in BizTalk Server 2004 or 2006 you know what the development experience is like. What I need to know from you is what other features should be included in this component for example:

An Excel Schema Editor Extension similar to the Flat-file schema editor extension.
An Excel Schema Generator Wizard similar to the Flat-file wizard in BTS2006.
Anything else you can think of?

Please post your suggestions and comments to this post and I'll pass them along to the development team working on this. I can't make any promises but we'd really like to make this Excel parser as full featured as possible. Thanks in advance for your help!

---
Jeff

Published Jan 29 2006, 07:42 PM by jlynch

Filed under: BizTalk Server

Comments

Bryan Corazza said:

Jeff,

I'd say just make sure your taking advantage of as many 2006 features as possible (e.g. recoverable interchanges). Are there any plans for an adapter? It seems that after all this work, a send/receive adapter wouldn't be that far off. Luckily I've worked with iWay before and their products can convert almost anything, but they are on the expensive side. Let me know how it goes.

-Bryan

# January 30, 2006 11:49 AM

jlynch said:

Brian,

Right now we are looking at an Excel parser (disassembler component) only since by doing this the Excel file can be sent to BizTalk using any adapter (FILE, FTP, HTTP, etc.). Any thoughts on a target price range?

--
Jeff

# January 30, 2006 5:54 PM

Bryan Corazza said:

Jeff,

iWay adatpers I've worked with tend to be in the 30K-40K range. For your disassembler component, I'd say a between 1K-5K. I know just from working with BizTalk since 2000 that this kind of thing is wanted out in the BTS market. I've even used code from a 3rd part grid component to read excel into xml within a pipline comp, so the need is def. there. Keep me posted.

-Bryan

# February 1, 2006 12:44 AM

jlynch said:

Brian,

Thanks for the feedback. We are getting very close to having the feature set completed and should begin testing within a month.

--
Jeff

# February 1, 2006 8:51 AM

Matt said:

Jeff,

I recently posted a DBF/Excel Pipeline Parser :

http://objectsharp.com/blogs/matt/archive/2006/01/29/3778.aspx

One limitation of the above Excel parser is that I believe it will only parse simple Excel Documents (just rows and columns). I have not tried to parse with more complex Excel documents.

So I am curious as to how complex of an Excel document the retail version will parse?
One other feature the retail version could implement is to filter the incoming data, i.e. Amount >= 500.
I think somebody else mentioned this, but envelope / recoverable interchange processing would be nice. But possibly this could be done in a XML Dissasembler after the Excel Pipeline component.

I like your ideas of an Excel Schema Editor Extension and Excel Schema Generator Wizard.

As was mentioned above a price range of 1K to 5K would be reasonable.

Matt.

# February 1, 2006 10:51 AM

Terry said:

We are using BizTalk 2004 as well as iWay Adapters. Ideally we would like a more integrated Excel Adapter and of course cheaper than iWay. Would also need to be sure it can handle Formulas, References, and multiple WorkSheets.
We are starting to have many Excel Requests, so the sooner the better.

Thanks,

Terry

# February 1, 2006 11:21 AM

Jeff Lynch [MVP] said:

I have some great news for BizTalk Server 2006 developers. FarPoint Technologies and I have been working together for the past six months on a new (Excel) XLS File Pipeline Component for BizTalk Server 2006 and it's almost ready for public beta.

# May 6, 2006 2:14 PM

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Jeff Lynch [MVP]

BizTalk Server 2006: Excel Parser Update

Comments

Bryan Corazza said:

jlynch said:

Bryan Corazza said:

jlynch said:

Matt said:

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Jeff Lynch [MVP] said:

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