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I am trying to create a small material database file that I use very often for all my programs. Few questions I have so how can I make it work efficiently

1) Can I directly read the files in patran like an include file? The reason behind is this that I during my program I can add more material to the file and I can save this file separately without merging it with the full model
2) Can I directly read the excel file into patran? so I that I have once copy of excel that patrans refers to and creates material files during the program. If this is more efficient way, how to do it? any steps