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I am currently using "Read Excel Spreadsheet to CDT" Plug-in to read v

samuelr
I am currently using "Read Excel Spreadsheet to CDT" Plug-in to read values from Excel. However, when I have a row in excel that needs to be read in as text and the field is defined as text in the cdt, the plug-in formats the data using a numerical protocol when the data is read in. Meaning if you have data in a cell as 456000000, it will not appear this way when its read in, even though everything is defined as text. It will instead read in 4.56e8, which is a problem when you get rounding and the values become distorted. This happens for columns with mixed data as well. I was wondering if there is a way to get the plug-in to read the data as it is stored in excel, without distortion, and without making any changes the excel file like putting ' before the data....

OriginalPostID-75135

OriginalPostID-75135

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  • 0
    What is the data type for this column in your excel spreadsheet? If it is a text you shouldn't be facing this issue. This is usually seen only with columns that have numeric data.
  • 0
    The column is a mix of text and numbers, but the Appian field is of type text. What I would want is all of it to be read as text, but the plug-in read text ok and for the numbers does numerical formating and then puts it into the text field instead of reading it as it is given just like it would with text. Any suggestions on how to make it read the numbers in the column as they are specified would be very helpful.
  • 0
    Hello Samuel, The concern here could be the format set on the columns in the uploaded excel sheet and may not be the data type of the fields/attributes in the CDT.
    If you can set the format of the column (having a mix of text and numbers) as "Text", instead of "General", it may help you.
    Could you please try this -
    Select the column (having mixed data of text and numbers) in the excel sheet --> Right Click --> Format Cells --> Category (Select the category as "Text" explicitly) and upload this updated sheet.
    Hope this helps.
  • 0
    I did just that and yet, the formating in excel did not yield any better results.
  • 0
    Samuel, I am sure you must have tried this, but to confirm, once you updated the format of the cells in the excel sheet, did you click (double) on the columns which show the exponential format (example:4.56e8) to expand to its original number (456000000) and then upload. Because I just tried a small example now and the formatting of the excel should do good, but only if you double click on the values to the get to its orginal number.
    Hope this helps!
  • 0
    If you can attach your Excel spreadsheet, and an export of the CDT you're using (either XSD or an application) to the discussion thread for this component: forum.appian.com/.../6169 then I can take a look.
    In general, though, this component isn't meant to work with columns that are "mixed-type" because a major assumption of the Table --> CDT conversion is that each Excel row is the same data type.
    Also, you mentioned in your original post that you don't want to make any changes to the Excel file -- does this still hold? Because if the component doesn't work as-is with your file, it's a lot easier to change your Excel formatting than to guarantee a plugin that will work with all types of data and formats.
  • 0
    Hi Elizabeth,
    we are facing similar issue and was not resolved even after trying out the above mentioned points. I have created a sample application and attached it alongwith the excel on the thread link given by you in the above post.
    Could you please let us know what can be done?

    Thanks

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