If you are having problems with CSV files, there are some basic things you can try to fix them.

Use Templates

Identify and fix error messages

Ensure dates are correct

Include leading zeros

Too many columns/rows and row 1 error messages

Open CSV in UTF-8

Save CSV in UTF-8

It's always best to start with a template to ensure that your headers (row 1) are correct. MeetingPulse provides templates for all CSV files to help you get started.

When Excel gives you an error in a CSV file, the information in that cell will be replaced with the error code. Therefore, you'll need to fix those errors.

Often, this happens when a cell starts with a minus sign (or other math symbol.) You'll see a "#NAME?" error message. Simply add a single quote before the dash to ensure your real data comes through.

Excel stores dates and times as numbers that can be converted to various formats. If you see the dates as a simple string of numbers, you may need to set the cell format to the date or time you need.

To do this, find the Number panel on the Home ribbon and click the arrow in the lower right corner to see all the cell type options. Pick Time or Date and the format you need.

You can also access this by right-clicking on the cell and picking "Format Cells".

You may also want to do this for some text cells. By default, Excel strips out leading zeros, which can cause problems (especially for US zip codes in the Northeast.) By making them a text cell, Excel will leave the zeros alone. However, you'll need to do this while you're loading the CSV file.

You may get an error message that there are too many columns or that there are errors in row 1. The simple thing to do is to delete a bunch of columns at the end of your CSV to remove any extra commas.

We recommend deleting at least 5 columns. You can sometimes get this issue by pasting some data that's too wide for the headers on your CSV. In that case, you'll need to delete all the columns that had any data pasted into them.

A similar issue can occur if you've added too many rows of data so they don't line up properly. In that case, delete the extra rows. Again, we recommend deleting at least 5 rows.

Click on the row numbers to select them (you can hold down shift to select them more quickly.)

Then, right-click and select delete.

In Excel, if you select cells and hit "delete" on your keyboard, this will clear the cells. In your CSV file, Excel will keep the necessary commas so that the data to the right continues to line up with the headers.

However, if you want to remove an entire column (such as "bookings" in the Schedule CSV,) it's best to delete the whole column. You're most likely to need to do this for the right-most columns. To do this, click on the letter of the column to select the whole thing. Right-click on the same spot and select "delete".

In order to preserve international character differences, we use UTF-8 for our CSV files. Unfortunately, Excel's automated loader does not detect UTF-8. Here's how you get Excel 365 to load CSV exports manually.

2. Open file type.
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3. Select UTF-8.
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4. Click "Load" to add the CSV to your empty workbook.
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You also want to ensure that you save in UTF-8. To do this, open Excel's Save-As dialog and select "CSV" from the file type dropdown.

Next, click on "More Options".

This opens a new Save As window. Click on "Tools" then Web Options. Next, switch to the Encoding tab and ensure it says "Unicode (UTF-8)".

Now it's ready for import into MeetingPulse!