How to convert HCM Extract Export XML to Readable format?

I made some minor tweaks to the John’s XSL script to make it more user friendly by changing some parameters and spacing.

Without much delay, let’s have a look at the tool and how we should use this tool.

Let’s take a sample Extract export XML file and see how it looks.

We will consider an existing extract for this purpose and let’s see how we export the XML file for an extract.

Navigate to My Client Groups > Extract Definitions and search for the extract.
Click on the Export button to export the extract to XML.

HCM Extract Export XML will look like below:

It is hard to read through this XML file to check all attributes and the flags associated with the attributes , advanced filters, fast formulas and dbi name.

Now, we will use the XSL Transformation tool to transform the Exported XML file to an html file.

We will use the free XSL Transformation tool online https://www.freeformatter.com/xsl-transformer.html

Now, let’s input the Exported XML and XSL file (John’s XSL file attached at the end of the article) and click Transform. You can either copy paste the XML and XSL or browse for the files and transform it.

It will open up a new window with the transformed output file.
Copy paste it onto Notepad++ and save it as Extract_Name.html (SM_Demo_V1.html)

Now, Let’s open the html file and check how it displays the output.

Overall this is a cool way of reading through the extract without importing the extract to an instance.

Tip: We can use this html view to compare changes to an extract between different instances. As it extracts attribute and flag level information, this can be used to compare and migrate changes.

Download Links for Files:

HCM Extract Exported – SM_Demo_V1.xml
Transformation XSL File – XML Transformation.xsl
Transformed readable Extract – SM_Demo_V1.html