About Creating Datasets by Importing Files

When importing a dataset, if you specify a Data Type for a column and that column contains values that are not supported by the selected Data Type, the entire column will be excluded from the dataset.

When importing a file, in the Modify Columns section, if you select the check box in the Unique Value column for a given column and the file that you are importing has the same value in multiple cells within that column, only the first row with a unique value will be imported into the dataset.

Microsoft Excel files with the file extension .xls or .xlsx can be imported to create a dataset. In a Microsoft Excel file, data is organized within grids, and can contain multiple worksheets. When importing a Mircrosoft Excel file, a dataset can be created only from a single worksheet. If you want to import multiple worksheets from a Microsoft Excel file, you must create a new dataset for each worksheet.

Extensible Markup Language (XML) files that have the file extension .xml can be imported to create a dataset. XML files can be created in text editors, such as Notepad and Microsoft Word, but can also be opened and viewed in an Internet browser.

When importing an XML file, the following data types are supported:

• string: Used for columns that contain alphanumeric values. Columns of this type will be imported using the Character data type.
• double: Used for columns that contain numeric values and may include a - (negative sign) and decimal. Columns of this type will be imported using the Numeric data type.
• dateTime: Used for columns that contain date and time values. Date values should use the format YYYY-MM-DD, and time values should use the 24-hour time format THH:MM:SS (e.g., T14:30:23). Columns of this type will be imported using the Date data type.
• boolean: Used for columns that contain logical data. Data in these columns should be limited to the following values: True, 1, False, and 0. Columns of this type will be imported as a Logical data type.

Each row of the dataset is contained with a Table tag. The attributes within the Table tag correspond to the column names defined via the xs:attribute tags.

Text files with the extension .txt or .csv can be importet to create a dataset. These files contain lines of data that are delimited, or separated, by punctuation marks, with rows of data separated by line breaks.

Meridium Enterprise APM accepts the following characters as delimiters:

• , (comma).
• ; (semicolon).
• | (pipe character).

To maintain the structure of the dataset, delimiters must be used throughout the file, even for cells that do not contain values. To identify an empty cell, you would need to include two consecutive delimiters (e.g., A,B,,D,E).