Data Source Supported File Formats

*The following article does not apply to Google Docs Spreadsheet Data SourceClosed Data sources, also known as "Lookups", are external sources of data that you upload or connect to TrueContext. You can reference this data in a form to populate answers or answer options. Data sources save typing, reduce errors, and make it easy to provide mobile users with only the relevant, most current data.

Contents

CSV

A CSV file can be created and maintained using a simple text editor (like Windows Notepad), but it is often more convenient to manage tabular data in a spreadsheet application and to generate a CSV file using the application's "Save As..." feature.

When saving to CSV from your favorite spreadsheet, saving to MS-DOS format is recommended.

A sample CSV content is as follows. Please note that the quotation marks shown are only strictly necessary if the one of the fields of data contains the delimiting character (in this case, the comma between the last and first names).

"Name","Age","Gender"
"Smith, John","34","Male"
"Smith, Joan","23","Female"

This will result in a data table that looks like the following:

Name Age Gender
Smith, John 34 Male
Smith, Joan 23 Female

XML

For the XML format for a Data Source, the root element is considered a list container. Each element under the root is a data container, and each leaf node in the data container is used as a column in the resulting Data Source table.

<items>
  <item>
    <Name>Smith, John</Name>
    <Age>34</Age>
    <Gender>Male</Gender>
  </item>
  <item>
    <Name>Smith, Joan</Name>
    <Age>23</Age>
    <Gender>Female</Gender>
  </item>
</items>

JSON

For best results, upload a file containing a JSON Array of Objects, or an Object with a single property whose value is a JSON Array. All properties whose value is a basic type (string, boolean, number) are used as values, whose column is the object path to the value.

[
 {"Name": {"First": "John", "Last": "Doe"}, "Age": 34, "Gender": "Male"}
,
 {"Name": {"First": "Jane", "Last": "Doe"}, "Age": 23, "Gender": "Female"}
]

Excel

TrueContext supports using Microsoft Excel's .xls and .xlsx files as Data SourcesClosed Data sources, also known as "Lookups", are external sources of data that you upload or connect to TrueContext. You can reference this data in a form to populate answers or answer options. Data sources save typing, reduce errors, and make it easy to provide mobile users with only the relevant, most current data.. When selecting an Excel file to upload as a Data Source, please ensure that there is minimal formatting that uses a single tab, if possible.

2019-08-20-DataSourceExcel.png

Data Source Size Limits

Data Source size limits are a way to help you optimize mobile device performance. The more data that you load on a device, the longer it takes for the Mobile App to reconcile.

Info:The topic Best Practices for Data Source Size provides more information about the Data Source size limits.

If you’re an Enterprise customer, we recommend that you follow best practices for Data Source size before you request a size limit increase.

Tier Maximum number of cells Maximum number of rows Maximum number of columns Maximum number of characters in a cell Maximum file size
Essentials 100,000 10,000 500 32,767 500 MB
Advanced 500,000 50,000
Enterprise 2,000,000 (default) 200,000 (default)