The ability to import Excel sheets into Projectmates can save you tons of time that would otherwise be spent in data entry, but it can also give rise to some unexpected errors. If you've ever encountered difficulties when trying to import Excel files into a budget, schedule, punchlist or any other module with this time-saving feature, these suggestions should alleviate some of your concerns and have you importing like a pro in no time.
Here are some of the most common reasons why an import will fail and what you can do about it.
1. Some of the required fields are missing. Check to make sure that all of the required columns are completely filled out for every row. Required fields are marked in green on the template. Sometimes empty rows at the bottom of the table will cause this error if any of the cells contain spaces, tabs, or other invisible characters. Try highlighting several rows at the bottom of the table, starting with the first empty row, and deleting the rows (Right-click and select delete to do this, rather than just hitting the Backspace or Delete key)
2. Dates or numbers are not in the proper format. Make sure that all dates are displayed in the format of 01-Jan-2010 and fields that require a number do not contain any letters or special characters including dollar signs and commas (Note: decimals are ok for currency fields)
3. Cell Formats are incorrect. All fields should be formatted as TEXT in Excel. If you are attempting to use formulas in your spreadsheet, you must copy and paste those cells using 'Paste Special' then select the option to paste 'Values' so that the formatting can be changed to Text. Sometimes Excel will AUTOMATICALLY AND WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION change the formatting of a column to 'Number' if the first few rows happen to contain numbers. To force Excel to recognize these as Text fields, you will have to add an apostrophe in front of the number in the first row.
And finally, if all else fails, copy all of the non-header cells in the table (Select the cells, don't just highlight the entire table or entire columns/rows) and paste them into a fresh Projectmates template, which can be downloaded from the same page where you would import the Excel file. This will solve many formatting issues that can occur while working in Excel.
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