Bootstrapping data into Entities from an Excel spreadsheet

We often need to populate our Entities with pre-existing data, either for testing or for a production environment context. For this, the platform provides a feature (with two alternatives) to bootstrap from Excel files:

• Populate the data into an existing Entity: In this case, we will have to be careful 
to match the Entity's fields to the Excel columns. The platform automatically creates the necessary code for this purpose and a timer to load the data in the next module publishing process (the file will later be in the resources section of the module).

When we use this functionality, Service Studio, in order to ensure that the fields are correctly mapped, asks the developer about the match between the Excel fields and the Entity's attributes, as we can see in Figure 5.6:

Figure 5.6 – Mapping fields from Excel to an Entity in Service Studio popup

• Create an...