Blank Screen On Data Import Wizard When Importing From Excel File

Published Date: May 5, 2025

Validated: Yes

Products and Versions Covered: 

• Jama Connect® All versions
• Cloud/CVC
• Self-hosted

Summary

When importing an Excel file into Jama Connect®, there are a couple of reasons that a user might encounter a blank screen on Step 3 of the Data Import Wizard:

The first reason is that if an Excel file used for import contains multiple worksheets, if one contains the '&' character, it can cause a blank white screen during steps 3 and 4 of the import wizard and prevent a successful data import. It does not happen with other characters such as '*', '^', '$', etc.

This is observed when performing a standard Excel import (non roundtrip) where the file contains at least 2 sheets and title of the second or third, etc, contains the '&' character. If this is the case, the following blank screen can be seen on steps 3 and 4 of the Data Import Wizard.

The second cause of the issue is when the 'Unique Field Name' of a field in an Item Type is named either 'method' or 'dom'. The Unique Field Name is generated from the Field Label when creating a field, but can be manually altered upon field creation. It cannot be modified after the field is created. This issue is encountered if a Field is named simple "Method". If you need a field named "Method" in your item type, make sure to modify the Unique Field Name to something more descriptive, such as "verification_method" to avoid this issue.

Cause

For issue 1, in the logs, you will see the following error: 

This suggests that Jama is attempting to convert the '&' character in the worksheet title and is failing, but when the '&' is absent, the conversion succeeds.

For issue 2, the cause is that the unique field name of 'method' or 'dom' is being treated as a JavaScript object, which confuses the Import Wizard.

Prevention

For issue 1, ensure that the worksheet title does not contain the '&' character.

For issue 2, ensure that no unique field names contain the values of 'method' or 'dom'.

Resolution

For issue 1, simply remove the ampersand '&' character from the worksheet title. It can be replaced with 'and' without changing the title's meaning. 

Note that the worksheet title is different from the file name. This issue affects the worksheet title.

For issue 2, there are two options since the Unique Field Name value cannot be modified once the field is created.

1. Delete the field and recreate it with a different Unique Field Name. IMPORTANT! This has the potential to delete information if there are existing items where that field is populated.
2. Create a new item type mirroring the previous item type, making sure no Unique Field Name has the value 'method' or 'dom'.

Additional Resources

• Imports from Excel
• Import items or test cases from Excel
• Success Programs
• Success Catalog
• Datasheets
• Request a Solution Offering or Training from the Success Catalog

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