Import records

Import when the records already exist somewhere else: a spreadsheet, another program's export, a supplier's price list. There are two ways in.

Into a table you have

This is the careful route. Before anything is written, it shows where each column will land and how many of its values will be read correctly.

1. Open the table, click its name at the top of the grid and choose Import data.
2. Drop a file on the box, choose Browse files, or paste your rows straight into the box. It takes xlsx, csv and tsv files. The first row must hold the column names.
3. Choose Continue.
4. Read the review. For a workbook with several sheets, pick the Sheet. For each column it says where it lands, into Price · Currency or new field · Number, and how many values convert, such as 48 convert, 2 become empty.
5. Leave out any column you do not want with Leave this column out.
6. Choose Import. The rows are written in the background, with the progress on screen. You can close the dialog and carry on working: the import keeps running, and its rows appear the next time the table is read.

What the review tells you before you import:

• Columns are matched to fields by name, ignoring capitals, spaces, punctuation and accents. The order of the columns does not matter.
• A column that matches no field becomes a new field, of the type every one of its values fits, or Text. The review names these first.
• A field that no column fills is named too: it stays empty on every imported row.
• Values are read the way your workspace writes numbers and dates (see Workspace settings). In a workspace set to Romanian, 1.234,56 is read as 1,234.56 and 01.03.2026 as 1 March 2026.
• A column landing in a link finds each record by what the link shows, such as the customer's name. A column landing in a person field finds each person by e-mail, then by name. The review counts the values that name nobody, or more than one record.

Update rows that exist

To refresh a price list instead of adding it twice, tick Update rows that already exist, instead of adding them and choose the field under Match on, such as a product code. Rows of the file with the same value update that record; the rest, and rows where it is empty, are added. The review counts both before you import. Sterodata refuses a field whose values repeat, in the file or in the table, because it could not tell which record to update.

If you may add records to the table but not change them, only adding is offered. A file too large to send in one go is refused: split it, or import one sheet at a time.

As a new table

1. Choose Data, then New, then Import CSV, and pick a csv file.
2. Check the table's name at the top; click it to change it.
3. Click a column's heading to change its name or its type. Under each heading you see how many values are unique and how many are empty.
4. Choose Import.

Import CSV takes csv files only, and offers five types for a column: Character, Number, Boolean, DateTime and Url. For an xlsx or tsv file, create the table first and use Import data.

A few rows from a spreadsheet can also go straight into the grid: see Copy and paste rows.