About Importing Metadata in Smart View

In a new Excel sheet, you may want to make use of Smart View content in an existing sheet that contains not only the formatting and layout that you need, but metadata as well. Metadata consists of Smart View artifacts such as the POV, alias tables, and connection information. Instead of recreating the Smart View content from scratch, you can reuse the work that is already available.

When you use the Excel copy and paste commands to copy Smart View content within or between sheets, the static data and formatting is copied; but the Smart View metadata is not copied in the new sheet. For example, if you open Sheet Information in the new sheet, it does not show any connection details and displays the Sheet Type as Empty.

By using the Import Metadata command, after the data is copied, you can import the metadata from the original sheet into the new sheet in the same workbook. Now if you open Sheet Information for the new sheet, you can see the same connection details and Sheet Type as the original sheet.

To use the Import Metadata feature, metadata is required in at least one sheet in the current workbook. You can import metadata from sheets containing forms or ad hoc grids.