Problem in uploading a STAR created in LibreOffice

[danaim]

Downloading a STAR template and compile it in LibreOffice and upload it again in xlsx format creates a conflict in the Recent F and Recent B values. It only recognises the first years values (cells: F17 and O17)

A quick solution is to copy - paste in the online version.

OS info:

Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS
Release: 20.04
Codename: focal

LibreOffice 6.4.6.2 40(Build:2)

Thanks!

[arni-magnusson]

Thank you for highlighting an important point. I quickly checked at one point how the STAR template looked in LibreOffice. It looked okay-ish, but I noticed that the time series table object does not expand automatically when years are added. This can prevent correct calculations in Recent B and Recent F (and subsequent formulas), as well as successful import into the database.

At the moment, we cannot recommend using LibreOffice to fill in the STAR template. We will look into possible solutions.

[arni-magnusson]

The first release of the STAR template is indeed designed with MS Windows + MS Office in mind, since that covers the vast majority of users.

Having said that, we will certainly not leave Linux users out in the cold. The first thoughts that come to my mind are:

1. We may offer an online interface where people can fill out the STAR template, some Excel in the cloud kind of thing.
2. We may be able to change the Excel template so it works smoothly in LibreOffice.
3. We may develop a LibreOffice template that works smoothly.
4. In LibreOffice, the user could manually redefine the time series table region, and the formulas to calculate recent B and recent F (and the subsequent formulas) may work as intended after that.
5. In R, we could experiment with an alternative container to submit stock assessment results to the STAR database.
6. In LibreOffice, the user can overwrite formulas with the intended values.

These are roughly in the order of preference from my perspective. R packages and LibreOffice workarounds can be fun, but there are definite benefits for the GFCM secretariat to have only one supported pathway to submit results to the database. Let's see if we can experiment with the "Excel in the cloud" approach first and if that doesn't work we can move on to other approaches.

An "Excel in the cloud" would not only be useful for Linux users, but also for anyone that does not have a recent version of MS Office on their computer.

[RobertoEmma-GFCM]

Hi there,
Thank you for reaching out on this matter. Apparently, LibreOffice lacks complete support for the use of Excel Table Objects, which the STAR template leverages at this stage. In the design of services hosted on our online platform, we always try to make sure that fallback tools are made available online for users working on different OS or merely not having MS Excel at disposal. In this specific case, I advise:

• uploading the template in the document library, nested under the Files tab;
• edit it through Teams from the web browser, thus using Excel Online.

In the picture here below, it is possible to see how the web UI allows the table to be expanded quite easily upon data entry in a given row, by simply hitting the Enter key on your keyboard:

Please feel free to raise further queries in case any additional help is required.

Kind regards,
Roberto

[arni-magnusson]

Excellent. So one could do something like this:

1. Download an empty STAR template (e.g. from https://github.com/gfcm/star) and then rename the file to a descriptive name, such as STAR_2019_HKE_20.xlsx
2. Open the Teams application
3. On the left-hand side of the screen, navigate to the working group
4. On the right-hand side of the screen, navigate to Files, STAR
5. Upload the STAR template from step 1
6. Select the filename and it will open in Excel within Teams, ready to fill in the stock assessment results

This Excel-within-Teams fully supports table objects and all other features of the STAR template. Any changes are automatically saved.

This solution should work well for all platforms that can run Teams, which covers practically all operating systems and distros, including Ubuntu.

Thanks, Roberto, for pointing out that the solution was already in place!