Formatting Metadatabase CSV

CSV files uploaded to Insight for use as a metadatabase must be properly formatted.

The first row of the CSV file must only contain the column names. If actual data is in the first row, Insight will recognize that data as the column names. An example header is: “userID”,“FirstName”,“LastName”

Every row afterwards should contain the actual data. To match the above header, we could have the following sample rows:

“1”,“Jerry”,“Garcia”
“2”,“Harry”,“Nilsson”
“3”,“David”,“Bowie”
“4”,“Paul”,“Simon”
“5”,“George”,“Harrison”

Compiled together the complete CSV file looks like:

“userID”,“FirstName”,“LastName”
“1”,“Jerry”,“Garcia”
“2”,“Harry”,“Nilsson”
“3”,“David”,“Bowie”
“4”,“Paul”,“Simon”
“5”,“George”,“Harrison”

If you have difficulty formatting a metadatabase, one workaround is to create a new, empty metadatabase in Insight. Then, populate a single row with data. This does not need to be any specific data as this is simply for formatting purposes. Next, download the CSV using the “Download CSV” button. Open the CSV file and modify it as necessary.

To convert a pre-existing .XLX or .XLSX to a CSV, be sure to select “save as” when saving the file and changing the file type to CSV.