Forum Discussion

slej's avatar
slej
Regular Visitor
9 years ago
Solved

Excel Text Columns read as Number

I'm trying to import an Excel file into BI Desktop. The first column in the spreadsheet is a TEXT column but when I try to load into my Power BI dashboard, it changes it to a NUMBER column. Consequent...
Need Help
  • slej's avatar
    slej
    9 years ago

    I got it to work!

     

    On a whim, I decided to sort the dealer number column in DESCENDING order.  This placed dealer numbers beginning with Z first instead of dealer number 13. 

     

    Apparently, PBI must make assumptions regarding the column type based not on the Excel file but on the first record(s) in the column when imported.  By changing the sort order so the alph/numeric records were first, everything loaded fine!  :smileyhappy:  Thanks.

BetterCallFrank's avatar
BetterCallFrank
Resolver IV
9 years ago

Hi,

 

go to the query and edit it. In there you can click on the column that is supposed to be text and under the tab "Transform" select a text-data type.

 

HTH

ripstaur's avatar
ripstaur
Helper III
5 years ago

This doesn't really work. The problem comes in when you have something like Zip Codes or FIPS codes that have leading zeroes. If you change it to text, it will not add the leading zero back in. Why doesn't a microsoft app take data types from another microsoft app without changing them?