Microsoft Excel is the number one application used by engineers around the world. It is often used as a lightweight relational database, where each sheet represents a table with its rows and columns. However, unlike a real relational database, it is not possible to query Excel with SQL. Storing the data in a real relational database would alleviate this problem.
Moreover, if the data represented in Excel sheets is heavily interrelated, it makes more sense to store them in a knowledge base (like Fuseki) and query them with SPARQL (similar to SQL but for knowledge bases). While this can be a nice way to query, engineers still prefer to update the data through Excel.
This project shall develop a web application that allows engineers to define one or more mapping from a knowledge base to an Excel sheet. Using each mapping, a user can generate and download (from the knowledge base) an Excel sheet based on that mapping. Such a sheet can be used by the engineer to add/delete/edit the data. The modified sheet can then be uploaded back to the knowledge base to update it.
This web application will give the user a UI to assist in specifying mappings and storing the mappings in a database. It will also give the UI to import./export the Excel sheet based on a mapping. The app can be implemented with any technology stack, but the knowledge base needs to be Fuseki.
- Make sure to have Docker Desktop installed
- Run the following command at the root directory to build all docker containers:
docker-compose up -d - After all containers are up, enter
http://localhost:8080/on your web browser to open the locally running web application