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Import file formatting
Import file formatting
Chris Becher avatar
Written by Chris Becher
Updated over a week ago

While using Riipen's import functionality, you will be dealing with comma separated value (CSV) files which have very specific requirements in terms of how they are formatted, what encodings are present, and other technical specifications. Make sure to consult the appropriate help article for the specific type of import you are trying to conduct in order to download the associated import template file which serves as a starting place for your import file.

General

File format

General file requirements for Riipen importing are as follows:

  • All headers must be present and unchanged from the provided template file.

  • Unless otherwise stated, all fields are case sensitive

  • File must be exported in a true .CSV format

  • File may not be another file type with a .CSV extension added to it

  • File must be exported in Unicode (UTF-8)

Encoding

Riipen only accept UTF-8 encodings for import files. If you don't use UTF-8 format in your import files, it can cause poorly translated import records or even complete import failures.

To ensure you are using UTF-8 you can follow one of these steps below:

  • Microsoft Excel

    • Select "File->Save as" from the menu.

    • In the "Save as type" dropdown, select "CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) (.csv)"

    • Select "Web Options" in the "Tools..." dropdown at the bottom of the dialog box.

    • Select the "Encoding" tab.

    • In the "Save this document as:" dropdown, select "US-ASCII"

Attributes

All attributes in imports will specific an attribute type you must adhere to. What follows is a table of all attribute types and their formatting requirements:

Type

Format

Array[Type]

  • One value of the defined type, or multiple values separated by a semi-colon

Boolean

  • True or False

Date

  • Formatted as yyyy-mm-dd

Float

  • Any numeric decimal value such as 1, 1.2, 1.23, -2.5, etc.

String

  • Any string of UTF-8 characters

  • Max length of 256 characters

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