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Spreadsheet formatting tips

How to set up your spreadsheet to make it versatile!

These spreadsheet tips will make it much easier for you to use productivity tools to analyze your data and automations to connect your spreadsheet to the Common Impact Data Standard.

Formatting your spreadsheet

One data table per sheet.
Data table can start several rows down (e.g. to allow for header information)
Data rows and columns are contiguous (e.g. no blank rows or columns inserted for presentation purposes)
No merged cells in the data table itself (it is not a problem if there are merged cells in the header)
Data table does not include rows with grand totals or other summarized information (these are best aggregated in a separate sheet)

Using your spreadsheet

Data are stored in cell contents (i.e. not as highlighted cells or other formatting)
Sheet and column naming is consistent (e.g. Output or Outputs but not both)
Categorical values are entered consistently (e.g. ideally populated from a picklist rather than entered as free text)
Date values are entered in a consistent format (e.g. YYYY-MM-DD)
If relevant to the dataset, a clear convention for differentiating “missing” values from “unknown” values (e.g. “missing” and “unknown”)

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