Why does Import Speadsheet pick column “A” as the edit column?
I saw something odd in an import recently where the import picked a column way out to the right of the list. So I put together a test with columns in all different orders, and one that only had numeric columns.
Import #1 – second column used as the edit column
Import #2 – fourth column used as the edit column
Import #3 – first column used as the edit column
Import #4 – no imported column used! New one added!
So the answer is…
SharePoint uses the first “text” column it finds, and if it can’t find one, it creates one!
I opened each of the views above in SharePoint Designer, and found the the Edit Menu column in each one has an internal name of LinkTitle.
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5 comments:
is this universal for SP2007 and 2010?
Bill,
Yes, I tested in both 2007 and 2010.
Mike
Hi. I found this issue in my Foundation 2010 enviroment. But! If importing less than 118 rows of data it keeps the "title" column as edit column. If I select 119 rows of data it changes to the next column. Same source file. No matter if the title column is the only one formated as text in the XLS.
pontus.s,
Is there anything unique about your 119th row? As an experiment insert some test rows starting around 116 or so with data copied from 115 and see if the error point changes. If there is a numeric value in a column of otherwise text, or text in a numeric field, then I would expect what you are seeing.
Mike
Thanks so much for this. Nothing common sense to follow the logic for this.
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