Importing Data Fields Automaticaaly Changing to Checkboxes

Lee Ratzlaff

Hello,

I am attempting to create a new grid by importing an excel file.

The data includes 0, 1, and 2 and every time I import the file it turns the fields into checkboxes. I want the raw data displayed, not turned into true/false with random 2's

What is going on?

Thanks!

Genevieve P.

Hi Lee,

Thank you for following up. Can I confirm what file type your excel file is saved as?

With more testing I found that a CSV file with similar data imported as you are showing, but when I saved the file as XLS instead of CSV it imported into Smartsheet as expected, with the numbers as numbers instead of checkboxes.

Try saving your file as a different type, then importing... did that help?

Thanks!

Genevieve

Genevieve P.

Hi Lee,

I've tried to reproduce this to test but I was unable to receive the same result (mine imported as a drop-down select list, similar to how your column ysr6 imported).

Since checkbox columns in Smartsheet use 1 to mean the box is checked and a 0 to mean it is not, the import is likely reading your columns as intended to be a checkbox column type. You might want to try adding a row at the top of your excel file with a longer number in each column (such as 100) to help indicate that this is not intended to be a checkbox column type. Then once the data is input, you can delete out the top row.

Let me know if this works!

Cheers,

Genevieve

Lee Ratzlaff

Thank you for the suggestion, but that did not make any difference:

Genevieve P.

Hi Lee,

Thank you for following up. Can I confirm what file type your excel file is saved as?

With more testing I found that a CSV file with similar data imported as you are showing, but when I saved the file as XLS instead of CSV it imported into Smartsheet as expected, with the numbers as numbers instead of checkboxes.

Try saving your file as a different type, then importing... did that help?

Thanks!

Genevieve

Lee Ratzlaff

That must have been it! I was exporting from REDCap, and it autosaves everything as CSV but saving it as excel worked perfectly. Thanks!

Genevieve P.

That's so good to hear! Thanks for following up. :)

Arlene Peterson

This doesn't help for those of us who do not have Excel at work.

It would be much better if SmartSheet could import data the way it should be imported instead of having to rely on outside tools to fix your problem. Google imports this correctly.

Please consider fixing.

I was able to import it into google sheets, then download as an xlsx