We recommend using the 'Paste Special' option each time you prepare a Quartzy Import Template. This prevents special formatting like links or equations from pasting which can cause errors when importing the file to your Lab.
However, Excel may sometimes not correctly recognize dates when pasting using the 'Paste Special' option. To solve this issue, force the cells into Text format before you put dates into them:
1. Copy the dates from the Excel spreadsheet as they are (most likely they are in the "Date" format).
2. Paste into a Word document doing a Paste Special -> Unformatted Text.
3. Go into the Quartzy Excel Template, select the whole column (A) and change the format of the whole column to Text (B).
4. Copy the dates from the Word document and do a Paste Special -> Text onto the Quartzy Excel Template in the appropriate column.
Note: Ignore the warning that "these look like dates, do you want to change the format"
5. Upload the template to Quartzy. See the upload instructions here to make sure you have completed all steps correctly.
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if you simply had an apostrophe before your date ('9/30/2014) then format your excel cells to text instead of date it will upload to Quartzy in the correct format.
Hi Michelle. That does appear to work! Thanks so much for sharing this idea here.