September 6th, 2022 by Adam Sandman
We are excited about the upcoming release of Spira 7.2 in the next couple of months, it will have many enhancements and security fixes (following our most recent pen-test) as well as two major planned new features - product/project custom properties and an integrated spreadsheet editor. In this article we will be discussing the new spreadsheet editing functionality. If you need a place in Spira to manage data, your wish has been granted!
Adding a New Spreadsheet
The new spreadsheet functionality can be accessed by simply going to the main Documents page and choosing Add Document. In addition to the existing types for text documents, diagrams and file uploads, you will now see the new option to create a new spreadsheet:
Just like creating a new document, when you create a new spreadsheet, you will need to chose the filename, description, type, folder and (optionally) any meta tags:
Once you click the Add button, the system will display the standard Spira document editing page, this time with the new spreadsheet editor displayed inline:
The editor includes a toolbar and menu-bar where you can specify the formatting of the cells, sort the data, cut, copy and paste and perform other common spreadsheet functions.
Adding Spreadsheet Data
In this example, we have added in some data about our sample users - their name, age and eye color. We have changed the background color of the header and made the text bold:
Suppose we want to add a calculated row that displays the sum of all the ages of the users. That's easy, you just click on the cell where you want the result and start entering the formula (in this case =SUM) just like you would in Excel or Google Sheets.
When you enter in a data-range, the editor will intelligently highlight the rows that are being used in the calculation:
Once you have the correct formula, you can click away and the system will display the calculated result:
The system comes with a wide variety of built-in formulas, including, sum, average, and hundreds of other functions.
Exporting the Spreadsheet
Although the new Spira built-in spreadsheet is very powerful, sometimes you want to export the data into another spreadsheet such as Excel. Natively the editor saves the data in a special *.sheet file format, but you can easily export to Microsoft Excel, using the Download as... Microsoft Excel (.xslx) feature.
Versioning the Spreadsheet
Finally, one of the benefits of using the built-in Spira spreadsheet editor is that it keeps your data safe and secure, in the same place as all your other project data, with the ability to follow workflows, make the data read-only and even manage the different versions of the spreadsheet every time you save a new version:
With the spreadsheet editor you now have a central location to manage all your project data and sample test data for testing.
What About the Future?
Future possible enhancements include the ability to more closely integrate the spreadsheet data into the test execution wizard so that you can create and update test data live during testing. In addition, another key future enhancement will be to enable Rapise to view and edit the spreadsheet data live in the Rapise built-in spreadsheet editor.