Issues Uploading Excel Spreadsheets and CSV Files
From EtelligentWiki
Though Excel spreadsheets and CSV files are quick and easy to use when uploading contact data to Etelligent, they do however present a problem: they do not provide information regarding the type of data they contain; whether columns are numeric or text, for example.
This presents a problem when you upload an Excel spreadsheet or CSV file containing both text and numbers in a column which can result in data being lost.
Take this example of an Excel spreadsheet to be uploaded:
It contains four columns, the "interesting" one being the last one, PurchasesMade, as it contains both numbers and text.
Once uploaded into Etelligent using the Upload Contacts navigation option, the data looks like this:
As you can see, the "PurchasesMade" data is now missing the "Unknown" values; only the numbers have made it into Etelligent.
The reason for this is that the Microsoft object Etelligent uses to open Excel spreadsheets and CSV files scans the values in the columns as a way of determining the "most appropriate" data type to use for each.
In this example, it chose to use a numeric type for the PurchasesMade column as the majority of values it contained were numeric. Unfortunately, this leads to the text values - the words "Unknown" - being lost.
You can avoid this problem by using an Access database file as that has definite data types which removes the need for the Microsoft object to perform any "best guessing".
