Import Spreadsheets in Ruby on Rails with Flatfile.com
Andy Maleh • July 05, 2023 • Montréal, Canada

Software systems require input in order to compute data and produce output. And, one of the ways to provide input to a software system is by uploading a flat file that contains information about various entities (e.g customers or products) in the form of a spreadsheet, following the CSV or XLSX format.

In order for a software system to properly accept a spreadsheet file as input and effectively process it into output, it usually needs to map spreadsheet columns to entity attributes to store the data in a database. And, often, there is a requirement to validate the data before accepting it (e.g. ensure a column value is within a certain range), and to apply transformations to the data before storing on records in the database. That is in addition to performance, security, usability, and reliability non-functional requirements that ensure that a user could upload a spreadsheet quickly enough while seeing progress indicators in a user-friendly experience and getting their data processed and transformed in the backend without any data loss.

Enter Flatfile.com! A SAAS product (Software As A Service) that automates the handling of all the concerns and requirements mentioned above and more in a Ruby on Rails web application.

This talk will provide a brief overview of the Flatfile.com SAAS product features while demonstrating a real world example of using it in a Ruby on Rails web application.

Montreal.rb Meetup July 2023