To DT

Create DocTable from Schema

TableWiz enables you to document the schemas that you create, by creating an Excel table or range from the schema. This allows you to augment the schema with useful information, such as a text description of the column. This table can be used for training or audit purposes.

The DocTable can also be used as the source for changes to the schema. See the next function “Create Schema from DocTable” for more information.

Key Steps

To create a “DocTable” or Documentation Table of a schema, perform the following key steps:

Step #

Step Detail

1

Click on the “To DT” button in the TableWiz Menu bar.

2

A parameters form is activated (See Figure x)

3

Fill in the parameters and/or accept the defaults generated by TableWiz based on the selected schema. Refer to the Parameter Description Table below.

5

When ready to create the datagrid(s) from the loaded schema, click on the “Go” Button

6

The function will complete.

7

If you want to retry the function, go to step 3

8

Else, click in the X button to close the parameter form

Table 9: Create a Table of Contents Steps

Parameters

The following dialog / form appears, containing the parameters required to create a DocTable from a schema.

Figure 22: Create DocTable from Schema Parameters Form

The parameters in the Parameters Form screenshot above are described in more detail in the Table below.

Section

Property Name

Description

Data Type

Input Parameters

  

These parameters define the schema that will be used to create the table or range output

  

Result Settings

  

These parameters control the layout of the new table/range and select the target Excel container in which the new table/range is created

  

Result Settings – Result Content

  

These parameters control the layout of the new table/range

  
 

Table/Range Selector

Select whether the target will be created as a range or as an Excel Table.

  
 

Table Name

In the case that the Table/Range Selector is set to “Table” you have the option of setting the name of the table that will be created. The default is “DocTable”, but you can set it to anything you want.

Note: if you’re creating a set of DocTables in the same workbook, you will need to create unique table names or you will see a dialog box as shown in Figure 99 that there is an existing table with the same name.

Text

Result Settings – Target Location

  

These parameters select the target Excel container in which the new table/range is created

  
 

Target Workbook

if you want to create a new Workbook, select “New” in the drop-down selector.  Otherwise select an open workbook in which you want to create this new table.

  
 

Target Worksheet

if you want to create a new Workbook, select “New” in the drop-down selector (default).  Otherwise select one of the existing worksheets in the selected workbook in which you want to create this new table.

  
 

Target Address

the source address is captured by TableWiz when the schema is created.  This setting will be used to populate these settings in the parameter form, but you can modify this by editing either the target address or the row/column numbers.  it’s entirely your preference which you edit as changes in one are reflected in the other.

  
       
       

Table 10: Create DocTable from Schema Parameters Reference

Figure 23: Existing table name warning message – Create DocTable

Results

The result of the Create DocTable function is a table in the Target Workbook that contains the metadata for each column in the view you selected.

The DocTable contains the following columns. In fact to generate this table, we captured the schema for a DocTable and then ran the “To DocTable” function on the DocTable Schema. (The table below is only a partial snapshot of the attributes captured in the DocTable.

Name

Title

Rat

Description

name

Name

daWideString

  

title

Title

daWideString

  

rat

Rat

daWideString

  

description

Description

daWideString

  

visible

Visible

daWideString

  

width

Width

daDouble

  

wrap

Wrap

daWideString

  

alignment

Alignment

daWideString

  

alignmentvertical

AlignmentVertical

daWideString

  

group

Group

daWideString

  

externname

ExternName

daWideString

  

externid

ExternId

daWideString

  

validationdescriptor

ValidationDescriptor

daWideString

  

editordescriptor

EditorDescriptor

daWideString

  

repdescriptor

RepDescriptor

daWideString

  

typedescriptor

TypeDescriptor

daWideString

  

kinddescriptor

KindDescriptor

daWideString

  

calcdescriptor

CalcDescriptor

daWideString

  

formatdescriptor

FormatDescriptor

daWideString

  

editdescriptor

EditDescriptor

daWideString

  

attributesignature

AttributeSignature

daWideString