Formatting Spreadsheets for Use in Grow

Spreadsheets are typically either automated exports or updated manually. Generally, an automated export of your data will be formatted correctly in Grow; however, if you are manually entering data you may need to do some prep work.

This applies to spreadsheets in Dropbox, Box, File Uploads, Google Spreadsheets, or FTP connections.

Here are a few basic principles to formatting spreadsheets:

1. Google Sheets cannot have a colon in the name of the spreadsheet. This will return the error "totalRowCount Undefined."
2. Column headers belong in the top row (row 1).
3. All column headers need to be unique.
4. Remove any empty rows or columns.
5. Dates should be in YYYY-MM-DD format.
6. Currencies and percentages should just be number values. Don’t include special characters like $, £, €, %, etc.
7. Remove any commas from numbers.
8. Categories and values need to be consistent. For example, if you have a column of states, make sure they are all using the same spellings or abbreviations.
9. Keep the font consistent, the data should attract attention, not the font or colors. 
10. Do not include a "Total" row. 

Here is a well formatted spreadsheet, compared to a less well formatted spreadsheet. 

Cleaning Up A Spreadsheet

Have a spreadsheet that you need to clean up? Here are some steps you can follow:

First, pull your spreadsheet into a program that allows editing. If you download the data, download it as a CSV file. Alternatively, you could upload it to Google Sheets to modify the spreadsheet. 

In the example here, we exported the data from Google Analytics.

Next, delete the rows with unnecessary information.

Your data should then look like this. You can see the headers are in row 1, there are no extra spaces or columns, and the dates are formatted correctly.

Pulling the spreadsheet into Grow will then be as smooth as butter.