Editing template formulae in .XML

[Ashton_Man]

I've not been on here for a while as we moved away from SIMs for our assessments for a few years but have now returned to the fold.

 

There has been a restriction on duplicating column titles and also aspect/result set combinations for some time.

It was possible to get around those restrictions in the past by exporting templates, editing the .XML file and then re-importing.

This no longer seems to work.

 

I have a lot of templates to update and I can resolve the duplication problem by changing some formulae.

When I look at the formulae in the .XML file, I am unclear about how they are coded....is there any way of editing the formulae in the .XML in bulk rather than trawling through each template and changing each formula manually?

 

In this particular case, I only need to change the aspect/column being referred to in each formula.

[bobsmith]

are you talking about individual report templates?

 

If so it's a simple find and replace job to change the resultsetid id and title.

[Esteban_Child_of_the_Sun]

If you mean the assessment Manager Templates, then the formula use a reference of the column number away from the start of the template in its formula reference, thus changing the column header won't mandate updating the formula

[Ashton_Man]

Thanks for the answer, Bob & I'm sorry that I wasn't clear. It's a set of marksheet templates, not report templates.

 

Esteban, if you don't mind persevering a little longer, this formula from the .XML file:

 

17154

 

Means that the formula type (17) is an 'equals'..that the formula exists in column 5 and that it is equal to the value in column 4?

 

If so, I can easily find & replace them all.

[Esteban_Child_of_the_Sun]

yes that's correct. I would recommend using XPath to find/replace so if you want to alter where an equals formula points you could use the XPath /TemplateFileV7/TemplateNode/Template/FormulaNode/Formula[./Type=17]/ColumnIdOrder/text()

The syntax of whatever tool you use may vary slightly

Edited April 20, 2018 by Esteban_Child_of_the_Sun

[Ashton_Man]

Thanks, you're a star.