Supported Data Types

The add-in supports a variety of OpenAPI data types available from REST services. These data types are derived from the service’s JSON Schema Specification.

This table shows how JSON data types are mapped to the Data Type property for Business Object fields as shown in the Business Object Field Editor.

JSON Type Business Object Field Data Type Notes
Boolean Boolean  
integer Integer integer is defined as a JSON number without a fraction or exponent part.
object Object See the subfields description in Configure Business Object Fields.
number Number When the OpenAPI format property is not int32 or int64, or is missing.
number Integer When the OpenAPI format property is int32 or int64.
string String  
string Number When the OpenAPI format property is big-decimal.
string Date-time When the OpenAPI format property is “date-time”. See Date-Time Value Handling.
string Date (no time) When the OpenAPI format property is “date”
array n/a Not supported

Caution: OpenAPI fields that use the big-decimal format are handled as Number fields. Excel and the add-in do not preserve arbitrary-precision decimal values. Values with many significant digits may be rounded during download, editing, search, or upload. Test representative values before using these fields where exact round-trip precision is required.

For OpenAPI properties with type “string”, the following format values are explicitly unsupported:

Except for the mapped formats shown in the table and the explicitly unsupported formats listed above, other format values are ignored and the field is mapped to the String data type.

The add-in ignores fields with unsupported data types when you create a Table layout or Form-over-Table layout in the Excel workbook. If, for example, a service that you use to retrieve data includes the binary attribute data type, the add-in ignores it and does not create a column in the data table for this attribute type.

Note: File, text, and web page type attachments are supported. See Create Layouts for Attachment Business Objects.

For more information, refer to the following OpenAPI and JSON resources: