Import Your Data · updated 2026-08-08

How to prepare your spreadsheet for the order importer in Dumpster Controls

The importer is forgiving about headers and separators, but it needs a header line and five required fields per row. Set your sheet up right and every row lands "OK" on the first paste.

1. 1

   Put the headers on the first line

   The first pasted line must be the column headers. The recognized columns are "name, phone, address, city, state, zip, date, price". Order does not matter, and columns the importer does not recognize are simply ignored.

2. 2

   Use header names it understands

   Matching is flexible: headers are compared ignoring case, spaces, and punctuation, and common variations map to the right field. For example "Customer" or "Client" work for name, "Street" works for address, "Zip Code" or "Postal" work for zip, "Delivery" works for date, and "Total" or "Amount" work for price.

3. 3

   Fill the required fields

   Every row needs a name, address, city, state, and zip. The state must be 20 characters or fewer. Phone, date, and price are optional.

4. 4

   Format the optional fields

   The date is the delivery date and accepts common formats such as 2026-08-06; an unreadable date falls back to today. The price accepts dollar signs and commas (for example $1,250) and must stay between 0 and 5000; an unreadable price imports as 0.

5. 5

   Keep each batch at 200 rows or fewer

   The importer reads at most 200 rows after the header. Rows beyond that are ignored without warning, so split larger sheets into batches.

6. 6

   Do not worry about the separator

   Pasting directly from Excel or Google Sheets produces tab-separated rows, which the importer detects automatically. Comma-separated and semicolon-separated text works too; the separator is detected from the header line. Blank lines are skipped.