Import an RVTools export and read your vSphere estate

RVTools turns the workbook you already export from vCenter into four answers: what is running, what it costs to license, what can be reclaimed, and how much room is left.

**Producing the export**

1. Run RVTools against vCenter with an account that can read the whole inventory.
2. Export to .xlsx. Keep every tab -- the analysis reads seven of them.
3. Do not edit the workbook. Column names are how the analysis finds each figure.

**Importing it**

1. Open RVTools in the main nav.
2. Optionally set the licensing and hygiene inputs first -- minimum cores per CPU, minimum cores per order, your price per core per year, the term, and the snapshot age threshold. Leave any of them blank to use the default.
3. Click **Import export** and choose the .xlsx file.

The workbook is read in your browser and only the columns the analysis reads are sent on, so a 5,000-VM export stays a request rather than a file transfer. The report appears the moment the analysis finishes, and stays in the import list so you can reopen it later.

**Which tab drives which answer**

- **vInfo** is required. Without it there is no VM list and no report. It drives every inventory figure.
- **vHost** drives the entire Licensing tab. Leave it out and the estate has no core count.
- **vSnapshot**, **vDisk** drive the Hygiene tab.
- **vDatastore** drives the Datastores tab.
- **vCluster** is used to cross-check the core count -- if vCenter reports more cores for a cluster than the hosts in your export add up to, the export did not cover every host and the report says so.

**What the import will not do**

It will not guess. A host whose socket and core columns cannot be read is left out of the estate total and listed by name rather than counted as zero cores. A snapshot whose date will not parse is counted as neither stale nor recent. Every gap of that kind is reported at the top of the report under "What the import could and could not read."