Text files are used to store data that will be loaded into the dashboard. Loading a text file requires two parts: the text file and an xml format file. The format file stores the column headings and datatypes of each column.
Creating a Text File:
- Begin by populating a text file with the data you wish to load, ensuring each column is separated by a delimiter. The delimiter traditionally used is the pipe character " | ", however other delimiters can be specified in the format file.
- Ensure each line in the text file is new line of data.
- Ensure the text file has the same number of columns as the format file. If a text file is missing a column then the record may be rejected by the dashboard text file loader. Also if a column doesn't contain data then the column should just have two pipes next to each other i.e. column 1 | column 2 | | column 4
- The text file should be named with a .txt extension to be visible to the dashboard loader.
- Each text file should have its own xml format file. So for example if you have eight text files, you will also require eight format files formatted correctly. The format file should have the same name as the texfile except with the extension .format.xml.
- The data should not include double quotes or other special characters as this will prevent the record from being loaded into the dashboard.