Countries with comma as decimal setting - How do you handle this for importing CSV files?

After you click 'Data' > 'Import', you'll be asked to select a source. Select the csv file with the comma as decimal and semicolon as text separator, then pls select the following as shown, i.e.

1. Column Separators = Semicolon

2. Decimal Separator = Comma

Thanks,

LipChean

All comments

After you click 'Data' > 'Import', you'll be asked to select a source. Select the csv file with the comma as decimal and semicolon as text separator, then pls select the following as shown, i.e.

1. Column Separators = Semicolon

2. Decimal Separator = Comma

Thanks,

LipChean

Thanks for the tip, I did not realize you could change that setting for csv.

Would I create two different processes then, one for countries who use comma as decimal and one who use period as decimal? We have a mix of countries importing files.

If there's absolutely no way to standardize the csv file into 1 format, then i'm afraid you're right, you'll need 2 separate actions, i.e. one for countries who use comma as decimal and one who use period as decimal.

Thanks,

LipChean

Thank you very much for your help.

I noticed that you can have comma and semicolon clicked at the same time in the load file settings. Is there a best practices for this - to do it in one grouping or to create two separate actions?

There really isn't a best practice for this, because different laptops settings setup their column separators differently, so i guessed consistency is what you should aim for, if possible.

Technically, the same import definition can deal with both comma and semicolon as column separator, i.e. 1 import action for 2 different csv formats.

1. Comma as column separator

2. Semicolon as separator

However, it becomes a problem if some of your users adopt the European way of using comma as decimal separators, as shown below. Notice how the comma column separator definition is applied to split 9,85 into 2 columns.

So i would encourage you to find out what combinations of csv you have amongst your users, and then try to see if everyone can follow the same format. If not, you might need to do some tweaking to the import mapping definition, OR come up with more than 1 import definition for the same import.

Thanks,

LipChean