How to Handle NULL Values Loaded by SSIS from Excel Files

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How to Handle NULL Values Loaded by SSIS from Excel Files

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yzhang

Posted Sunday, April 27, 2008 8:16 AM

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Comments posted to this topic are about the item How to Handle NULL Values Loaded by SSIS from Excel Files

Post #491125

Anipaul

Posted Monday, April 28, 2008 12:09 AM

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Useful one. Good for the new bies in SSIS. Also the links provided at the end are useful. :)

Post #491196

p.wiggins

Posted Monday, April 28, 2008 3:34 AM

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Hi,

This is an old problem with importing Excel, we just put in a dummy first row with data in the form rewuired for each column, e.g. TEXT for text, 1234 for number, etc. , then delete the first record imported. tends to solve the problem for us.

Pete Wiggins

Post #491267

Pieter-423357

Posted Monday, April 28, 2008 5:49 AM

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One could just save the Excel as a CSV file, load the file via BULK INSERT or OPENROWSET and be done.

Why go through hoops on and develop SSIS package? The portability and predictability of SSIS isn't that great anyway.

my 2 cents...

Post #491299

SuperDBA-207096

Posted Monday, April 28, 2008 6:03 AM

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I've had a similar problem - ended up resolving the problem as follows:

1) save the data as csv
2) create the table with the correct datatypes before importing.

That worked for me, and was alot simpler; although I believe your solution does help demonstrate some of the capabilties of SSIS.

Mark

Post #491310

thejackfy

Posted Monday, April 28, 2008 6:12 AM

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Much easier way is:

Load the Excel file with First Row as Header off even it contains the header. This can ensure all the fields are read in text format. And then add a Conditional Split to skip the first row.

Post #491318

Jack Corbett

Posted Monday, April 28, 2008 6:58 AM

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I thought the article was well-written and easy to follow. I do agree with others that loading the first row (header) as data in the source would be the simplest solution, yet I understand why you would miss this initially.

Jack Corbett

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Post #491345

marklegosz

Posted Monday, April 28, 2008 7:08 AM

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I may be missing something, but couldn't you just modify the select clause on the spreadsheet and manually cast to the correct datatype?

Post #491357

Steve-524674

Posted Monday, April 28, 2008 7:37 AM

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Call me crazy, but I think I would do a global change on the column to eliminate the dash.

Post #491381

David Greenberg-358875

Posted Monday, April 28, 2008 7:39 AM

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I found an easier way using steps in this MS KB article on the very same subject. I tried it and it works very well.

Solution : Set ConnectionString property of Excel source file as following

Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=filepath\filename.xls;Extended Properties=”EXCEL 8.0;HDR=YES;IMEX=1“;

NOTE: Setting IMEX=1 tells the driver to use Import mode. In this state, the registry setting ImportMixedTypes=Text will be noticed. This forces mixed data to be converted to text. For this to work reliably, you may also have to modify the registry setting, TypeGuessRows=8. The ISAM driver by default looks at the first eight rows and from that sampling determines the datatype. If this eight row sampling is all numeric, then setting IMEX=1 will not convert the default datatype to Text; it will remain numeric.

You must be careful that IMEX=1 not be used indiscriminately. This is IMPORT mode, so the results may be unpredictable if you try to do appends or updates of data in this mode.

Reference : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/194124/en-us

Post #491383

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