Visualization of calculations in JCI XLS for troubleshooting

Published Date: April 23, 2026
Validated: Yes
Audience: Jama Connect® Users
Products and Versions Covered: 

• Jama Connect®
  • Cloud/CVC
  • Self-hosted
• Jama Connect Interchange™ (JCI)
• JCI Module: Excel Functions

Summary

Oftentimes, we would like to see what's going on in our XLS spreadsheet that we use for JCI XLS calculations. Both to see how we progress with calculations, and also often for troubleshooting or improvement purposes.

Resolution

This resolution is using a technique to transform the calculation spreadsheet to an HTML-tagged text stream that can be an input for a rich text field in Jama Connect for troubleshooting purposes.

In this example, we would like to inherit field values from a Hazard item to related Risk Evaluations.

However, we would also like to see what content has progressed in our XLS spreadsheet that we put together for the JCI XLS integration.

In order to visualize the spreadsheet content, we need a field to input cell information.

In the Organization admin section, we can define a field:

That will be a rich text field on the field:

In order to populate this field above, we need to use HTML tags to format our output from the XLS file.

These HTML tags are the following:

• Table definition (start)
  <table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse:collapse; width:500px"><tbody>
   
• Table definition (end)
  </tbody></table>
   
• Table row (for 4 columns)
  <tr><td>column A</td><td>column B</td><td>column C</td><td>column D</td></tr>
   

Now, if we wish to populate the related Hazard ID, Name, Description and Severity in our JCI XLS spreadsheet, we would do something similar (for up to 10 related Hazards):

This is where, in columns A, B, C, and D, based on our JCI XLS field mapping, JCI would populate the related hazard items fields.

This spreadsheet is the one that can be extended to pre-format our calculation visualization field on the Risk Analysis item.

Please note "Table start HTML" (B14), "Table end HTML" (B15), and "First table heading" (B17) are standard HTML tags for formatting purposes.

Cells in E1-E10 formats related items field populated by JCI in columns A->D.

Cell E1="<tr><td>"&A1&"</td><td>"&B1&"</td><td>"&C1&"</td><td>"&D1&"</td></tr>"  means an HTML tagged row compiled based on column contents in column A->D.

Final HTML rendered content compiled in "OUTPUT" (B19).

Output includes "Table start HTML", "First table heading", all cells from E1-E10, and "Table end HTML", 
in equation:

B19=B14&B17&E1&E2&E3&E4&E5&E6&E7&E8&E9&E10&B15

This Output cell (B19) is to be mapped in JCI for the "JCI XLS - Calculation visualization" field.

Result is that we can actually see the relevant content of our JCI XLS file (!) in Jama Connect for improvement and for troubleshooting purposes.

Note, corresponding XLS file content:

Additional Resources (for all external articles)

• Applicable other resources (add additional resources above Success Programs or delete this line item)
• Success Programs
• Success Catalog
• Datasheets
• Request a Solution Offering or Training from the Success Catalog

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