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02 Get your data in

Check a file

Find and fix the format problems that cause failed uploads, and test a join with business data. Runs in your browser; your file is never uploaded.

Drop the file you’re about to upload. The checker reads it inside this browser tab, lists every known problem with a code, and gives you a fixed copy.

Use it on a file whose columns are already named text, userId, incoming, sessionId and dimensionlabs_timestamp, or on the output of the converter. If your export has its own column names, convert it first: otherwise the checker reports them as missing (C09). For business data, set File type to Business data, or leave it on Detect for me.

Your file stays on your computer. It is read inside this browser tab and nothing is uploaded. How to check that
No file handy? Try a sample with problems:

Every rule comes from real upload failures. Each code has an entry in Upload errors.

AreaChecks
The fileEncoding (F01), byte order mark (F02), null bytes (F03), line endings (F04, F05), every field quoted (F10), replacement characters (F12), size (F13), file type (F14)
Column namesRequired columns missing (C09), names to rename (C01), missing header (F06), backslashes (F07), stray spaces (F08), rows with the wrong number of columns (F09)
TextEmpty text (C02), placeholder text (C03), line breaks inside a field (C04)
Who wrote itTRUE/FALSE (C05), other values in incoming (C06), blank userId (C07)
IdsColons (C08), ids stored as decimals (C10), scientific notation (F11)
TimestampsEmpty (T00), seconds instead of milliseconds (T01), dates instead of numbers (T02), scientific notation (T03), outside 2000 to 2030 (T04), messages under a second apart (T05)
Business dataFile name (B02), mixed date formats (B03), mixed yes/no values (B04), table naming (B05)
  • Fixed automatically: byte order mark, null bytes, line endings, quoting, header spaces, column names, TRUE/FALSE, seconds to milliseconds, colons in ids, ids stored as decimals, line breaks in text, and a blank userId (filled from the sessionId).
  • Fixed when you tick the box: saving as UTF-8, backslashes in column names, removing rows with no text or placeholder text, writing out scientific notation that lost no digits, spacing messages a second apart, and, for business data, rewriting dates as YYYY-MM-DD and yes/no values as true and false.
  • Not fixed here: conversation timestamps written as dates (T02) need the converter, which turns them into Unix milliseconds. Empty timestamps (T00), a missing header (F06) and rows with the wrong number of columns (F09) need a new export or a hand edit.
  • Never “fixed”: values that already lost information. A timestamp Excel saved as 1.70324E+12 has lost its last digits; any value the checker wrote back would be a guess. Re-export from the source system, or drop the original .xlsx file here. The checker reads the first sheet of an Excel file directly, with the column names in row 1 and every digit intact.

Files of any size are fine to upload: Dimension Labs splits a large file for you, so you don’t need to split it.

To see how many of your conversations will match a business data file, check your conversation file first. Then open Test a join with a business data file below the results, drop the business file, and pick the key column in each. The test counts how many conversation keys are found in the business file, and how many keys repeat there. It doesn’t upload either file. A low match rate nearly always means the ids are written differently on the two sides; see Join business data.

Open your browser’s developer tools (in Chrome, View > Developer > Developer Tools on a Mac, or press F12 on Windows), go to the Network tab, and drop a file. No request carries your file. The page is also served with a security policy that only lets it talk to this site, and the checker’s code has no way to send data: a test in our build fails if it ever does.

The report you can download is a small .json file. It lists issues by code, row number and column name, and contains no values from your file other than the column names, so it’s safe to send to [email protected].