the Knowledge Xfer, Issue 43: Dealing with Excel Issues

Owned by Brendan Sweeney
Aug 11, 2022
2 min read

 

 

 

Hey Brendan,

Welcome back to the Knowledge Xfer! In last week's issue we discussed the importance of importing UDIs and how ConnectSx uses them as the source of truth, parsing it for you to populate the lot, expiration, and serial number. To read more, check it out here.

This week we're going to take a break from talking about ConnectSx functionality. Instead, we're going to discuss some common challenges our users encounter when dealing with .csv files in Excel and how to remedy them.

It is not uncommon to encounter strange formatting issues when opening .csv files in Excel, whether they be import files or exported .csv files from ConnectSx.

These are some of the issues we commonly hear:

  • The leading zero in my data is getting deleted when the file is opened in Excel

  • When the file is opened, the UDI is being converted to Scientific Notation

  • When the file is opened, the columns do not get delineated and are all combined in the first column

  • And more...

 

We understand that this can be frustrating. And a quick Google search proves it's not just you. And even though these issues are not ConnectSx specific, we have a couple options you can pursue to fix these and other common Excel data struggles.

  1. We know we're stating the obvious, but:

use a different program, such as Google Sheets, Numbers, or Open Office. These platforms do not typically encounter the same issues as Excel, especially when it comes to data formatting.

  1.  

Import the .csv into Excel (don't just open it in Excel), which allows you to set parameters, properties, and formats for your data, like telling it to use the coma from your .csv as a column delimiter. Learn more about how to do this here.

If you have had other challenges with your data when going back and forth between ConnectSx and Excel, we want to hear from you. We're always adding documents and articles to our Knowledge Base that benefit all our customers; and we would love to share what you're learning.

All the best,
Brendan Sweeney

Customer Success

To see all of our past Knowledge Xfer issues, check out the Knowledge Xfer archive!