Recipients - Managing customer data > Import function for recipient data > Creating a new import profile > Determining the CSV-file settings

Determining the CSV-file settings

The CSV file settings are made directly underneath the entry field for the names. You there tell OpenEMM what Separator and Text recognition character the CSV file uses and enter the Charset and the Date format.

Fig. 4.11: The basic parameters of a CSV file are set with these settings.

Fig. 4.11: The basic parameters of a CSV file are set with these settings.

Separator: If you collect the recipient data in a spreadsheet program such as Excel and save it as a CSV file, the detail is normally separated by a semicolon. If you use other programs however, it is possible that another separator is used. In this case set the corresponding separator in this part of the menu. As alternatives, these characters are offered:

Character

Meaning

;

Semicolon

,

Comma

|

Bar (vertical stripe)

Tab

Tabulator

Text recognition character: If the separator you have used is contained in your recipient data, it must be marked as such by use of a further character. For example, if commas are used as separators and the recipient data also contains commas, then the commas in the recipient data must be prepared for import by this character.

An example: Assume that the ADDRESS column of the CSV file contains the same town names but differing regional information such as New Town; Vine Street or New Town; Ashbury. If you are using the Excel spreadsheet program from Microsoft, semi-colons are added as separators when the CSV file is created. To ensure that the semi-colons in the town names are not seen as separators, Excel adds double inverted commas () as text recognition characters:

“New Town; Vine Street”; “New Town; Ashbury”

Therefore if you are using Excel for data import, we recommend that you choose double inverted comma () as text recognition characters. This prevents the semi-colons in the town names being entered into the database as separators.

Please note: This example relates to a CSV file generated by Microsoft Excel. If you are using other spreadsheet programs, we recommend that you consult the corresponding documentation to check what kind of separator your software uses.

Character

Meaning

None

No text recognition character

"

Double inverted comma

'

Single inverted comma

Charset: The West European ISO 8859-1 character set is preset as standard and can always be used. Other character sets should only be chosen if these are used in the CSV file.

Character set

Meaning

ISO 8559-1

West European character set

UTF-8

Unicode character set

Chinese simplified (GB2312)

Character set for simplified Chinese characters

Date format: In the standard setting, OpenEMM uses the normal dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm date and time schedule. The date is given in Day.Month.Year and the time in Hours:Minutes. The following alternative ways of writing this are available:

Date format

Written as

dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm

Day.Month.Year Hours:Minutes

dd.MM.yyyy

Day.Month.Year

yyyyMMdd

YearMonthDay

yyyyMMdd HH:mm

YearMonthDay Hours:Minutes

yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss

Year-Month-Day Hours:Minutes:Seconds

dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm:ss

Day.Month.Year Hours:Minutes:Seconds