Data entry in the IIP interface

This page provides information on how to efficiently enter information into IUCLID via the IIP interface.

Tabular data entry

The current release focuses on the efficient data entry of tables. The entry of tabular data in IUCLID is very time-consuming, as each cell has to be filled individually. With the IIP, the user can copy a table from a worksheet (e.g. Excel) into a real tabular display in one go via the Windows clipboard. Also ranges, individual lines and columns are possible.

Future releases of the IIP will support the editing of all fields with efficient copy/paste methods.

Data entry in the IUCLID entity management perspective

The perspective “IUCLID entity management” allows to browse the connected IUCLID instance and to display its main entity types in the IIP interface, optimized for data input.

The current version of the IIP supports the entry of data into IUCLID tables. The user can select and copy a range in a worksheet (e.g. in Excel) into the clipboard and then paste the data into a table in the IIP. The table display in the IIP supports cell selection, copy and pasting and navigation with the keyboard, similar as in Excel. This allows the user to quickly and efficiently fill tabular data, without the need of filling each cell individually as in the IUCLID interface.

Below, you find a screenshot of the IIP, with a document display on the right side with one table with 4 lines. The table is editable, meaning that each cell can be the target of a paste operation. The other information in fields outside of tables is displayed read-only in the current IIP version. Future versions may introduce data entry capabilities also for those fields.

The table used to produce the above entries is listed below:

GAP Use 1	parent		Tier 1	MACRO	Chateaudun	ca. 12 μg/L
GAP Use 2	metabolite		Tier 2	pearl	Hamburg	< 14 μg/L
GAP Use 3	parent		Tier 3	Pelmo	Porto	<=20 μg/L
GAP Use 4	metabolite		Tier 4	other: Tormo	Sevilla	>= 8 μg/L

Upon pasting into a table cell, the IIP will automatically add new lines if needed and verify, that the pasted data can be correctly matched to the document definition as retrieved from IUCLID, for example:

• For Picklists, the value must match one decode value of the respective IUCLID picklist. Upper and lowercase are ignored.
• Ranges can be supplied in one cell, meaning that upper and lower qualifier, number and unit can be supplied in one cell string. The IIP will parse the string and assign it correctly to the respective structure in IUCLID.
• Reference fields are resolved by searching the target entity in IUCLID with the given search string and replacing it with a true reference, consisting of the UUID of the target entity (see chapter below)

Below you seen an example of the same table as in the user interface above, but with a couple of pasted values that could not be validated and hence the data cannot be saved.

All data types are validated prior to saving the values to IUCLID itself and errors are indicated as above. This allows the user to quickly correct the data, e.g. by re-pasting corrected values.

Scope in IIP version 1.2.0

Please note the current topics for clarification of the scope of the functionality in the present version. In future versions, the scope will be further extended.

• The following field types in tables cannot yet be used for pasting and are therefore disabled:
  • Attachments
  • Data protection
  • References to blocks in the same document (as in OHT 85-5)
• Hierarchical picklists are enabled for pasting, but currently only support one value
• The display of text fields is abbreviated and the display of Richtext fields (with HTML formatting) is not correctly displayed. This is not critical, as the fields are read-only in the current version.
• As we trim all our paste values, please make sure, that the names in IUCLID do not have a trailing space, otherwise we will not find a match.
• Take care with strings with special characters like “μg/L” or “mg/m²” – your CSV cell must exactly match those. Surprisingly, there are (at least) two different character codes for the “μ” sign, the correct one to use is U+03BC. You are on the safe side if you simply copy the respective character from the IUCLID interface for those few characters.
• Please note that the cells in the tables in the IIP interface support pasting, but not direct editing and cell-wise deletion. To change or delete a cell also use a paste operation, e.g. pasting an empty cell. Complete lines can be deleted and added as in IUCLID with the button at the end of the line.
• Excel cells may contain control characters like CRLF, that you do not see in Excel cells, but are evaluated as new line when pasting. If you observe issues in pasting data, please paste your data in an application like Notepad++ and turn on “Show all characters” to see how your data really looks like when being copied from Excel.

As long as the pasted information cannot be correctly validated, the save button (upper right corner) remains inactive. This prevents to provoke errors in IUCLID.

After saving the document (upper right corner) the user can click on the UUID in the top bar to open the document in a separate browser tab in the native IUCLID interface, in order to verify the entry and to complete the remaining information.

Resolving cross-references

If you enter a string into a cell which is of a reference type (meaning it is supposed to contain a reference to another IUCLID entity) you can enter values that the IIP uses to search the respective reference type in attributes specific for each type. If an instance of the target type is found, the reference is considered resolved. If no target can be found with the given value, the cell turns red.

The following table shows the attributes, that are used for each target type of a reference:

Target type of reference	Matching attributes
Substance	sub.chemical (label: Substance Name)
Mixture	mix.name (label: Mixture/Product name)
Template	doc.name (label: Template name)
Literature reference	lit.owner_study_no (label: Study number) OR lit.title (label: Title)
Reference Substance	ref_sub.cas_number (label: CAS number) OR ref_sub.name (label: Reference substance name)
Legal Entity	le.name (label: Legal entity name)
Contact	contact.last_name (label: Last name)
All other (e.g. documents within the same dataset)	*.Name (no label)

Some target types are resolved using two attributes in parallel: A target entity matches the pasted, value, if either of its two attribute values matches the value. In addition, the IUCLID UUID can be used for all references, if needed.

There are reference fields that accept multiple target types, as in the following example:

In this case the IIP will query all of them to find a matching entity.

In case multiple instances match the given value, the IIP will resolve to the first one that is found. There is no warning about the value not being unique. Therefore, it is advisable to ensure that the values of the matching attributes are unique within the search scope (e.g the document name within a dataset)