Excel Based Data Entry

Verifiable Data Platform allows issuance of Verifiable Credentials from Excel template files. This is meant to support familiar, efficient data entry environments.

An important element of Excel-based issuance is the ability to issue multiple Verifiable Credentials of the same type at once. This also allows associating the issued Verifiable Credentials to a common batch.

As with other ways of issuing Verifiable Credentials on VDP, Excel-based issuance is based on templates. The high level workflow of Excel-issuance thus goes:

Download Excel template
Enter credential data
Upload the Excel file to issue the Verifiable Credentials

Please note that in addition to this guide, an instructional video is also available introducing Excel based issuance: https://youtu.be/QuQkt_EOjfs.

Template Download

To get started, navigate to Templates and select the type of template you wish to issue:

From the Download-option, select “XLSX”:

Open the downloaded XLSX file in Excel:

Go to the “Credential Template” tab:

Data Entry

On the Credential Template tab, you will find five columns pre-populated:

Column A includes keys which the Verifiable Data Platform uses to interpret the file. This is a useful navigator to keep track of the document hierarchy. For basic usage, column A should just be left unchanged.
Column B lists the title of particular row elements. Mandatory elements are indicated with an "*".
Column C lists the descriptions of particular row elements.
Column D includes an example. These sample values will not be issued, and are only included for guidance purposes.
Column E onwards is where data may be entered for issuance. Often, the same data needs to be included on multiple Verifiable Credentials; this is conveniently supported by Excel by simply duplicating the columns from E to F, G, etc. Make sure to add "VC 2", "VC 3", etc to row 1 for all columns to be picked up for issuance. The prefilled blue colored rows should not be overwritten and their values be copied to all columns. The light green rows are array values.

Note that columns B, C and D are only for human usage, not used for the actual subsequent issuance. You may freely collapse or delete these columns. In the following the sample and description (columns C and D) are deleted to focus attention and screen real estate on the data to be issued.

Basic Verifiable Credential Data

At the top of the template are some core Verifiable Credential data elements. Remember that anything in the blue should generally be left untouched.

The Packing List we are issuing does not need a specific identifier, name or description. Only the mandatory issuance date is added.

Issuer Data

Next are data elements about the issuer.

Packing Lists, like many other VC Templates, are required to be issued by an Organization.

Here, the organization name and description has been added. Also, the Organization’s default Decentralized Identifier is listed.

For simplicity, the remaining elements are left blank.

Business-Domain Data

Below the issuer comes the business data elements. These are all the elements which start with “credentialSubject” in column A. This varies significantly depending on the template.

Here, for example is the seller party of the Packing List which has been given name, URL and postal address.

Here, some common Packing List data are entered.

Multi-Issuance

A key feature of entering data into Excel is the ease in which many credentials can be issued.

Simply select the data which you just entered, and drag-copy to produce as many credentials as needed. Make sure that row 1 properly increments the VC identifier (VC 1, VC 2, VC 3, etc); Excel should do this automatically.

Here, four credentials are created:

Also, you likely want to make some corrections to the copied credentials. While the Issuer data can typically just be repeated, business-wise it seldom makes sense to issue exact replicas of data. Here, some of the Packing List-related data are changed according to four separate shipment:

Working with Arrays

Certain data elements can flexibly vary with respect to the number of entries added on a document. Examples of this include:

Adding multiple customer references on an invoice, or
Listing multiple line items on a purchase order.

The former is an example of zero or more simple strings. The latter is an example one or more complex objects (because each line item has a number of properties such as amount, weight, price, etc). Either way, we refer to such flexible constructs as "arrays".

Arrays are supported in VDP, also when issuing Verifiable Credentials via Excel upload. Array elements are marked green on downloaded templates.

On the above example, two booking numbers are listed on a Bill of Lading. The Bill of Lading schema allows zero to many such booking numbers, so you can insert as many additional rows as you need in this case. The important part is only that you make sure to increment the array index in column A: `/credentialSubject/bookingNumber/0`, `/credentialSubject/bookingNumber/1`, and a third entry should be `/credentialSubject/bookingNumber/2` and so on (note that arrays always start at 0).

For arrays of complex objects (such as line items), the array index is repeated for all the entry's values as shown below.

Note on the above example how all the elements of the first line item is prefixed with `/credentialSubject/items/0/`, the second line item with `/credentialSubject/items/1/`.

When adding additional complex items, we recommend copying the rows of one of the line items, pasting them as new rows below, then incrementing the new rows' indexes.