Explains how to upload data from Excel into the iPE application.

Sometimes you have several records to input and you'd prefer to get the data ready in an Excel worksheet and then upload it. This is possible in tons of iPE screens, for example with proposal Phases, Line items, Billing milestones or WBS elements, project Options and Estimates or Scope items within a Project, and for Structure and Indirect Costs within an Estimate.

To upload data from Excel, you need to first understand what format is needed by downloading an XL template.  To do this, click on the up-arrow from a tray icon in top-right corner of your table, as highlighted in the screen image below.

This then brings either a menu list of preconfigured upload templates or a popup with instructions to either:

• Select the file to upload, or
• Download an empty upload template to fill with data

Click on the link highlighted below to download a sample/template file.

Open the Excel upload template from your downloads folder. You will see a largely empty Excel workbook with column headings, typically matching the columns you were looking at in iPE. Sometimes there are help instructions built into the Excel template as a separate worksheet or row below the column headers. 

If you need to upload more information, make that column visible before clicking to download the template. Click here to personalize and change the columns in your view prior to downloading the Excel upload template.

Fill in the Excel sheet, being careful to input valid data (for example the start/end columns should be formatted as dates, and types, customers, suppliers, resource groups or anything which is a look-up must be valid) and then save your Excel file. Click on the upload arrow again (highlighted in the screen above) and this time click on Select File (1). You will be able to find and select your recently saved upload Excel file. The records in your file will be uploaded.

Notes

1. Some columns, for example columns with a button to perform an action, or amount columns with a currency which are calculated by the system, cannot be uploaded. Don't put data into these columns (it will be ignored anyway)
2. Checkbox columns where you click to mark them as on or off, will download and should be uploaded with the word TRUE (checked) or FALSE (unchecked) in that column
3. One column is often treated as a control to decide whether to insert a new column or update an existing column in iPE. This column is normally the line item ID or sequence number column of the table you are uploading into, and is always unique or different for each row. For example:
   • In the project > options or proposal > phases tab if you upload an phase or option sequence number which already exists it will be updated
   • In the project > estimates or proposal > work breakdown structure tab if you upload a WBS code which already exists it will again be updated. WBS code is not a separate column it displayed before the description of each estimate scope item, however it is uploaded, and stored, as a separate column
   • In the proposal priced deliverables or billing milestones tables the line sequence number denotes whether to update (sequence already exists) or create a new priced line item or billing milestone
   • In the estimate > labor, material or other direct costs tab new rows are added if the unique record number is new, or updated if it already exists (this is a longer record number e.g. PLN12345)
4. Do not mess with the column headings in line 1 of the Excel file! If you change the column headings the upload program won't recognize them. The first column is often important and should not be removed or moved to the right. Other than that the order of the columns in your Excel upload sheet is not important, as iPE knows what column is for what based on the column headers.