Import data with nulls in Desktop Intelligence

Question

Hello,
I have data with null values (in a measure).  If I export the data as CSV it shows null values as #EMPTY.  If I use that as a datasource, it loads #EMPTY as 0 (zero).
Is there a way to make desktop intelligence recognize null values?  I tried to remove the #empty and just leave the column empty, it still loads as a numeric zero.
Same (actually worse) for XML.  It seems if I export my data to XML it can not use that as a datasource.  Odd.  So I created the following XML file:
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<data>
  <item key="AAAAAEUK" value="130" category="A" />
  <item key="AAAACGDC" value="66" category="A" />
  <item key="AAAADNJP" value="56" category="A" />
  <item key="AAAAFWRQ" value="222" category="A" />
  <item key="AAAAGITU" category="B" />
</data>
I would expect the value field to be null for the last row.  But the values turns out to be 222!  If I try to put anything else, an empty string "", "#EMPTY", "null", it is always returned as 0.
This is a problem because 0 an null are differnt when computing averages.

Answer 1

Hi Florian,
What is the source of your csv data?
If I have a table in excel with empty cells, the data goes into the .csv as nothing so your example would look like
Item key,value,category
AAAAAEUK,130,A
AAAACGDC,66,A
AAAADNJP,56,A
AAAAFWRQ,222,A
AAAAGITU,,B
This reads in just fine in DeskI (shows #EMPTY in the view data, treats it as such in the report).
So I would look to get the data generated in right way, then DeskI can handle it, no problem.
If all else fails, just run a search&replace and change ,#EMPTY, to ,,
BTW if you have an alphanumeric value in a column where DeskI already decided there should be numeric,
it will read in as 0, that is why the #EMPTY string value got transformed to zero.
Good luck,
Marianne