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Idoia A avatar image
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Idoia A asked Clair A commented

Date Time Source Excel Import

Hello,

I am trying to use the Date Time Source importing the schedule from Excel. I am using a weekly repetition, the problem is that every time I import the Excel file, the table changes: Monday and Tuesday are replaced by Quantity and Name, so the source doesn't work. This happens in the advanced table as well, it doesn't look as it should.

It's the first time I have tried to import an Excel file so I may have done something wrong while importing, I would appreciate any help. I attach pictures.

Thank you in advance,

Idoia

FlexSim 19.0.2
importing data from excel file to source
datetimesourcetable.png (34.6 KiB)
datetimesourceadvanced.png (32.4 KiB)
excelschedule.png (27.2 KiB)
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Joshua S avatar image Joshua S commented ·

@Idoia A

Add a new arrival source, go in to edit it, change the Quantity to maanantai, and Name to tiistai, then click the excel import and do the whole excel import routine. See if this works or if you still get issues showing up.

This method seemed to work, but still looking into why it doesn't work normally.

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Idoia A avatar image Idoia A Joshua S commented ·

It seems to work with your method, thank you. Now I have a question about updating the values of the table from the excel file. Should I import the excel table every time the model is reset, by using OnModelReset trigger? If so, how should I do it? Or is there another way to do it? Let me know if I should post another question with this matter.

Thanks a lot.

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tannerp avatar image tannerp commented ·

@Idoia A, Is there any chance you could upload the files you're working with so we can attempt to import them? If they contain proprietary information, you may upload them in a private question so that only a few of us at FlexSim U.S. will see them.

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Idoia A avatar image Idoia A tannerp commented ·

@Tanner Poulton, Hello.

Sorry for the late answer, I attach a simplified version of the model I'm working on, as well as the Excel file. The Date Time Source is being used in the Task Executer Flow ("Forklift2").

Thank you,

Idoia

datetimesource.zip

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Joshua S avatar image
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Joshua S answered Clair A commented

@Idoia A

I talked with one of the developers and he said the UI for that table can be misleading. There are 2 buttons in the top right of the window, "Table" and "Advanced". The Table option is a basic outline of the week, but the Advanced option shows a more complete and real representation of how the schedule is working.

The first and second columns with be the start and end times, or Start Time and duration, but the next 2 columns need to be quantity for how many tokens will be created and the second needs to be name for the name of the tokens being created. In the normal view of the UI, anything else after that are labels. So you will need the format of the table you are importing to look more like this

which will account for your whole week in second.

Then you can toggle this button to have the model import the excel file every time the excel file changes on reset.

Sorry for the confusion.


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Idoia A avatar image Idoia A commented ·

Thank you for clarifying, the tables look as they should now.

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Clair A avatar image Clair A commented ·

Thanks @Joshua S. One of our users did a similar mistake, the data in his Excel file had 4 columns exactly like the table shown by default in the arrivals window:

  • Start (DD:)HH:MM:SS
  • End (DD:)HH:MM:SS
  • Quantity
  • Name

So we corrected his Excel file to have instead:

  • Start Time (in model units)
  • Duration (in model units)
  • Quantity
  • Name

I agree that the UI for the table can be misleading. I notify @Jordan Johnson if he has ideas of improvement.

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