Working with Messy Data Again

Ahhh, I’m working with another one of those downloads where the data do not lie in nice columns. I want to be able to compare data between two different downloads to make sure that the data is migrated correctly from one software to another. I would like to make Excel do most of the comparison and catch the differences. But first, the numbers have to lie in the correct column, not scattered amongst different columns.

I got used to SAP downloads where the file ended up being a flat file – not pretty but very useful.

Now I’m trying to figure out how to get the numbers fall in line before I can automate the comparison. This particular download has the additional aggravation of adding empty lines after every line of data, so I have rows to consider too.

When I was working with Mindbody, I used to think the folks designed it that way so that we had to asked them for a specific report, and thus spend money to get that specific information.

Is that what is happening here?