Why is there a huge space in the quotes " (123) 444-1234)" when exporting unassigned numbers? | Community
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Newcomer
January 20, 2023
Question

Why is there a huge space in the quotes " (123) 444-1234)" when exporting unassigned numbers?

  • January 20, 2023
  • 4 replies
  • 2 views

Zoom's exporting unassigned numbers by default puts in 3 spaces before the phone number. 

 

Why is that?

 

if I need to copy/past this info, having the spaces is going to be a problem.  how do you guys get around this. 

I really don't feel like having to write excel formulas to remove the spaces. 

other option, open in notepad++, remove space and quote and then open in excel, but why?

 

Does Zoom need these 3 spaces if i want to put these numbers into a CSV to assign numbers to extensions, or assign numbers to users?  

4 replies

Contributor I
January 20, 2023

I assume it is an artifact of their DB system as that is not the only place where spaces get exported in some fields in CSV files.....

newl
Education Ambassador
Education Ambassador
January 20, 2023

Hi @dylanhunt ,

 

The space is added because when importing into a spreadsheet, the default formatting for cells is usually set to "Automatic", which in my experience sets cells formatted to a numerical value (i.e. a number).

 

So (123) 444-1234 is converted by the spreadsheet to 1234441234, which is not great. 

 

What I have become accustomed to doing, is to export the DIDs from the Unassigned Tab. As you know this creates a CSV file.

 

I then import the CSV file to a new sheet, select all cells and set formatting to "Plain Text".

 

An alternative method / additional step would depend on the spreadsheet you are using. Your spreadsheet application may have a command that will automatically remove whitespace from cells. I have used this a few time when I forgot to set the formatting and had already merged the Unassigned DIDs with other data.

 

Google Sheets calls this feature "Trim Whitespace"

https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2019/05/new-sheets-features-may.html#:~:text=remove%20duplicate%20data.-,Trim%20whitespace%3A%C2%A0,-Sometimes%20when%20you

 

Excel has the "TRIM" Command

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/trim-function-410388fa-c5df-49c6-b16c-9e5630b479f9

 

Hope this helps!

 

Contributor I
January 20, 2023

I don't import the exported CSV files into actual spreadsheet software, I use the CSV's for various custom scripts - the export process on the Zoom end is what is adding in the extra whitespace for some fields for some exports; I've had to put in code to trim out the whitespace when dealing with the files.

dylanhuntAuthor
Newcomer
January 20, 2023

thanks guys for the tips!