The report file is generated as a Tab-separated text file. The report file needs to be converted into an Excel spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel 2003, 2007, or 2010 versions are currently supported) and formatted with various filtering Lists and Pivot Tables to get both the top-level summary views (Slice-and-Dice) and detailed topology difference (Drilldown). A VBScript based Macro automates the entire post-processing of the TCAT report. The Macro carries out all the report formatting, list filtering, and Pivot Table creations.

  1. Open the Macro-embedded TCAT Report Converter, that is, the TCatReportConverter.xlsm file available under <BASEDIR>/smarts/script/tcat/.

  2. Click “Enable Macros” to open the “Instruction” sheet.

  3. Click “File -> Open”, select the report text file, and then click “Finish”.

  4. Press Ctrl, Shift and C keys simultaneously. The VBScript based Macro carries out all the report formatting, list filtering, and Pivot Table creations.

  5. Save it as an Excel Workbook by “File -> Save As -> Excel Workbook” with the default name.

    Note:

    Do not insert or delete any row in the report file because the programmatically generated hyperlinks in the WorkSheet “Report” rely on pre-calculated locations. For example, you can click Cell E2 (merged E2-I2) to jump to the Summary and Statistics section. You may also click Cell A2 (merged A2-D2) anytime (when not filtering) to scroll the sheet to the top (this is important for subsequent filtering because Excel may not display filtering properly if the worksheet is not at the top position).

    You can double click on the Excel report output after formatting. That will bring up only those differences on a new sheet for you to drill down on the differences. Clicking on some fields in the Excel output file provides you with the drill down capability. Only the statistic cells in Columns C to F of the first three pivot tables (Summary, BySysOID, and ByDevice) and in Columns E to H of the ByReason pivot table can be clicked for the drill downs in which the detailed information for those selected entries will be pulled from the raw report and placed in a new worksheet.

    You can use filters to go over differences one by one and uncheck the differences verified. This will remove the differences from the view enabling you to not look at already verified differences. Also, you can use filters to see only one set of differences based on class, reason, and so on.