Many people have inquired how to export records from FormConnect and import them into Microsoft Excel. Below is the step-by-step process. The key is to use Microsoft’s import wizard. If you don’t use the wizard, your data will not format and align properly in the spreadsheet.
Exporting Records from FormConnect:
Select the records that you want to export and choose the CSV file format.
Below is a sample CSV file. It displays the records broken up by their field names separated by commas. To view a CSV file, you need to open it in a text editor such as Notepad or Wordpad.
Sample CSV File:
“Date”,”First Name”,”Last Name”,”To”,”From”,”Lodging”,”Breakfast”,”Lunch”,”Dinner”
“2011-05-13″,”Bob”,”Michaels”,”2011-05-13″,”2011-05-13″, “$100.00”, “$10.00”, “$7.50″,”$80.00”
Opening the CSV File in Excel:
When you import the file into a 3rd party program such as Excel, you must use the Microsoft import wizard (see below) and specify how you want the data to be formatted in the spreadsheet. Many people make the mistake of assuming that you can just double click on the CSV file from your email application and Excel will automatically format it correctly. This is an invalid assumption. You must save the file first and then open it via the File/Open process.
Launching Microsoft’s Import Wizard:
After opening the CSV file, Excel will then launch the Wizard and prompt you for the following:
1. Delimited File Type.
2. Column Delimiter.
3. General Column Data Format.
Excel Spreadsheet:
Follow the instructions from the screen shots above and Excel will display your records in the appropriate columns and rows.
