In this article

• Objective

• Background

• Steps

  • Microsoft® Excel

  • Google™ Sheets

  • Apple Numbers®

• A note on access and visibility

Objective

Minimize the potential to create duplicate records during the import process by ensuring your spreadsheet program is set up to allow leading zeros in column data.

Background

When importing a .csv file that contains External ID data, the spreadsheet application used to edit the .csv file removes leading zeros from the External ID value. For example, an original External ID value of 000071823 would become 71823 after the import. This results in a duplicate record being created in your instance of Coconut.

NOTE: External IDs that include a combination of alphanumeric characters are NOT impacted by this behaviour.

Steps

Before importing the .csv file, set up your spreadsheet program to keep leading zeros in the External ID field.

Microsoft® Excel

To keep leading zeros using Microsoft® Excel, refer to this article.

Google™ Sheets

To keep leading zeros using Google™ Sheets, a custom number format is required. Read more about how to do this in this article.

Apple Numbers®

Please refer to this article if using Apple Numbers®.

A note on access and visibility

Admin users can access Import/Export functionality.