Excel Source Node

The Excel source node enables you to import data from Microsoft Excel in the .xlsx file format.

File type. Select the Excel file type that you are importing.

Import file. Specifies the name and location of the spreadsheet file to import.

Use Named Range. Enables you to specify a named range of cells as defined in the Excel worksheet. Click the ellipses button (...) to choose from the list of available ranges. If a named range is used, other worksheet and data range settings are no longer applicable and are disabled as a result.

Choose worksheet. Specifies the worksheet to import, either by index or by name.

• By index. Specify the index value for the worksheet you want to import, beginning with 0 for the first worksheet, 1 for the second worksheet, and so on.
• By name. Specify the name of the worksheet you want to import. Click the ellipses button (...) to choose from the list of available worksheets.

Range on worksheet. You can import data beginning with the first non-blank row or with an explicit range of cells.

• Range starts on first non-blank row. Locates the first non-blank cell and uses this as the upper left corner of the data range.
• Explicit range of cells. Enables you to specify an explicit range by row and column. For example, to specify the Excel range A1:D5, you can enter A1 in the first field and D5 in the second (or alternatively, R1C1 and R5C4). All rows in the specified range are returned, including blank rows.

On blank rows. If more than one blank row is encountered, you can choose whether to Stop reading, or choose Return blank rows to continue reading all data to the end of the worksheet, including blank rows.

First row has column names. Indicates that the first row in the specified range should be used as field (column) names. If not selected, field names are generated automatically.

Field Storage and Measurement Level

When reading values from Excel, fields with numeric storage are read in with a measurement level of Continuous by default, and string fields are read in as Nominal. You can manually change the measurement level (continuous versus nominal) on the Type tab, but the storage is determined automatically (although it can be changed using a conversion function, such as to_integer, in a Filler node or Derive node if necessary). See the topic Setting Field Storage and Formatting for more information.

By default, fields with a mix of numeric and string values read in as numbers, which means that any string values will be set to null (system missing) values in IBM® SPSS® Modeler. This happens because, unlike Excel, IBM SPSS Modeler does not allow mixed storage types within a field. To avoid this, you can manually set the cell format to Text in the Excel spreadsheet, which causes all values (including numbers) to read in as strings.