Issue with CSV Parsing in Clay for Specific Company Names

Hi, I noticed that when Clay handles imported CSV, it literally only use 'Comma' You can see this issue only occurs if the company names contain ",S.A." or ",Ltd." While excel and google sheet can easily parse them correctly, Clay will parse them into an extra column

5 comments

Channeled
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We understand the issue you're experiencing with CSV imports containing company names with ",S.A." or ",Ltd.". This is likely due to Clay interpreting these commas as column separators. To resolve this: 1. Remove commas from your CSV file, especially within company names. 2. Ensure your CSV is UTF-8 encoded with comma-separated values. 3. Try uploading your data to a public Google Sheet, then download it as a CSV and attempt the upload again. If the issue persists, you can use our "Normalize Company Name" function after import to clean up company names. If you need further assistance, please request to talk to a person in this chat.
WhatAVenture A.
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But why excel exported csv is not working but Google sheet exported csv does
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The difference in behavior between Excel and Google Sheets CSV exports is likely due to how they handle separators and special characters. Clay supports CSVs with comma or semicolon separators, but mixing both can cause issues. To ensure a smooth import: 1. Use UTF-8 encoded CSVs with comma-separated values. 2. Remove commas from your data, especially in fields like company names. 3. If problems persist, try uploading your data to Google Sheets, then export as CSV and import into Clay. These steps help address separator conflicts and hidden formatting issues that may occur in Excel exports.
Stefano
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Hi, thank you for reaching out. The issue you're facing is that the CSV file you’re working with is using semicolons (;) to separate columns, instead of commas (,), which is the standard format for CSV files. To resolve this, you'll need to re-export the file using an application that correctly saves CSV files with commas as separators. When I open that original file in a simple text editor, I see the columns are separated with semicolons rather than commas. Something similar to what is shown below:
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I would recommend trying to re-export this file as a csv using another app. I happened to use Apple Numbers, but saving/exporting as CSV worked as expected for me, and resulted in columns separated by commas:
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...and a test import to Clay with the updated file worked as expected in my test account. I don't have specific guidance for the spreadsheet software you're using, but I believe the issue is with how that original file is being saved, rather than with Clay's handling of the file.
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