Preparing Delimited Text Files for Import

BOM data saved in a delimited text file can have a wide variety of formats and may contain irrelevant information such as page numbers, header lines, etc. You may need to edit or organize your data prior to import to Lambda Predict.

Preparing the Data

One way to prepare your data for import is to convert the delimited text file into an Excel file. Once you have organized your data in Excel, you can then use the automatic mapping method to build the import template, or use the manual mapping method if you plan to import a few fields only.

Alternatively, you may prefer to edit the text file itself and import directly from it. Here are some general guidelines for preparing the file:

• The data must be a sequence of fields, where each field is separated by a delimiter character. You can use a comma, tab, space, semicolon or carat as the delimiter.If you're using commas as the field separator, for example, and one of the field names contains an actual comma, you can use double quotes to prevent the comma in the field from being interpreted as a field separator (e.g., "Diode,Low Frequency").
• Enter only one component record per line and remove any empty lines.
• Each line of data must have the same sequence of fields.

Once you have organized your data in the text file, you can then build an import template using the manual mapping method. Make sure that the order of the properties shown in the Selected Fields area matches the sequence of the fields in the text file.

Sample BOM files are available in the example database installed with the software (called "Lambda_Predict20_Examples.rsgz20"). To access this database, choose File > Help, click Open Examples Folder, then browse for the file in the Lambda Predict sub-folder.

The name of the project is "Import Bill of Materials." Note that the examples were designed for the MIL-217 prediction standard. If that standard is not included in your software license you can use any other standard available to you, but keep in mind that only the first eight data fields in the file can be mapped correctly. The rest of the fields may not have appropriate matches in the standard you are working with.