Transferring From Microsoft Excel to MySQL

The best tool you need to create a visual representation of data and also setup some manipulations like arithmetic or statistic operations is MS Excel. That is precisely why a lot of businesses go for this program to accumulate some internal data like sales records, client’s data, etc. Still, as long as data volume increases they will require additional efficient system to coordinate and store all data in safe mode. Database management systems (DBMS) can easily be employed in such instances.

When deciding on a database as migration goal, it is sensible to look at benefits of new system alongside MS Excel. The majority of latest well-known DBMS offer strong functionality to store, manage, protect and share data. However, if a company doesn’t want to enhance total cost of ownership for new system, they need to reduce scope of variants by free database management systems: MySQL or PostgreSQL. When evaluating these two DBMS, PostgreSQL demands a lot more time to understand it as compared to MySQL and as a result PostgreSQL-based systems consume more resources for development. That is why any business with no competent stuff in PostgreSQL field should give consideration to MySQL as the best goal of migration from Microsoft Excel.

Migration techniques 

You will find a straight forward process to move Microsoft Excel data to MySQL server. Firstly, you will need to export data from MS Excel spreadsheet to plain text or CSV, after that, create empty MySQL table and lastly, use “LOAD DATA” command to import data from intermediate storage to MySQL table.

Is this method adequate? Yes, it is for experienced programmers or database administrators. Mainly because this solution demands manual creation of destination MySQL table, all data types must be defined correctly. Or else, the conversion process may result in data loss or corruption or data.

Data migration tools

Another method to move data from MS Excel to MySQL is to use specific software created for automating the complete procedure. Excel to MySQL converter is one among these tools, and the wizard style interface which offers enough features for effective migration of complex MS Excel spreadsheets is easy to use. The outcome of migration is precise at the same time since the software does all required data transformation, manages multibyte character sets and a lot more. To get additional control over the migration procedure or in case there’s no direct access to MySQL server, Excel to MySQL converter can easily export data into MySQL script file.

Smart conversion

Microsoft Excel possesses a few data types whereas set of MySQL types is much bigger. For instance, MS Excel doesn’t have different types of INTEGER and DOUBLE. To prevent the loss of data, all MS Excel numbers need to be converted into DOUBLE, this generates incorrect look of resulting data. For a solution on this problem, Excel-to-MySQL evaluates each value in every column within the the conversion process. If all values of certain column permit more precise type conversion the program refines the column type.

Assume that some MS Excel worksheet contains the following values in particular column:

1.000000000000000e+000

3.000000000000000e+001

2.000000000000000e+002

…

At the early stage of conversion, the Excel-to-MySQL creates the related MySQL column as DOUBLE. During the course of data migration, the program understands all values of this column are integers, afterward, it will transform column type to INT at the end of the procedure.

Intelligent types conversion offers even better outcomes when moving data from Comma Separated Values (CSV) files. All values from CSV files are initially managed as strings. After evaluating the data, Excel-to-MySQL converter can identify numbers and dates in the CSV fields.