Information Extraction from Legacy Spreadsheet-based Information System - An Experience in the Automotive Context

Domenico Amalfitano, Anna Rita Fasolino, Porfirio Tramontana, Vincenzo De Simone, Giancarlo Di Mare, Stefano Scala

2014

Abstract

Nevertheless spreadsheets were originally designed for computing purposes and for commercial applications, they are often used in industry to implement Information Systems, thanks to the functionalities offered by integrated scripting languages and ad-hoc frameworks (e.g., Visual Basic for Applications). This technological solution allows the adoption of Rapid Application Development processes for the quickly development of Spreadsheets-based Information Systems, but the resulting systems are quite difficult to be maintained and very difficult to be migrated to other architectures such as Database-oriented Informative Systems or Web applications. In this paper we present an approach for reverse engineering the data model from an Excel spreadsheet-based information system. The approach exploits a set of heuristic rules that are automatically applied in a seven-steps process. The applicability of the process has been shown in an industrial context where it was used to obtain the UML class diagrams representing the conceptual data models of three spreadsheet-based information systems.

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Paper Citation


in Harvard Style

Amalfitano D., Fasolino A., Tramontana P., De Simone V., Di Mare G. and Scala S. (2014). Information Extraction from Legacy Spreadsheet-based Information System - An Experience in the Automotive Context . In Proceedings of 3rd International Conference on Data Management Technologies and Applications - Volume 1: KomIS, (DATA 2014) ISBN 978-989-758-035-2, pages 389-398. DOI: 10.5220/0005139603890398


in Bibtex Style

@conference{komis14,
author={Domenico Amalfitano and Anna Rita Fasolino and Porfirio Tramontana and Vincenzo De Simone and Giancarlo Di Mare and Stefano Scala},
title={Information Extraction from Legacy Spreadsheet-based Information System - An Experience in the Automotive Context},
booktitle={Proceedings of 3rd International Conference on Data Management Technologies and Applications - Volume 1: KomIS, (DATA 2014)},
year={2014},
pages={389-398},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0005139603890398},
isbn={978-989-758-035-2},
}


in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of 3rd International Conference on Data Management Technologies and Applications - Volume 1: KomIS, (DATA 2014)
TI - Information Extraction from Legacy Spreadsheet-based Information System - An Experience in the Automotive Context
SN - 978-989-758-035-2
AU - Amalfitano D.
AU - Fasolino A.
AU - Tramontana P.
AU - De Simone V.
AU - Di Mare G.
AU - Scala S.
PY - 2014
SP - 389
EP - 398
DO - 10.5220/0005139603890398