Variation Name formatting issues.

[LocavoreStore]

We've been using the "Variation Name" (or "Price Point Name", as it shows up in a detailed transaction report) of a product to store a custom SKU. This number contains the product's vendor ID, it's wholesale and retail price, its unit of measure, and more recently, the date that the item was created on. It's not enough to store this in the SKU field because some products already have their own barcode from the vendor.

The number used to be 15 digits long, and everything was fine. But once I added the date (an additional 6 characters) it no longer translates properly to a CSV file...

I'd upload some screenshots, but that doesn't seem to be working right now

For instance:
Product X, SKU: 1139012104990
Product X, Variation Name: 113901210499003211835

But in any downloaded CSV file, the variation name for Product X will show as 113901210499003000000, and not 113901210499003211835. The last 6 digits are being replaced with 0's... It does this for all products with a 21 digit variation name.

[LocavoreStore]

I should note that the 21 digit name is being kept in an items Variation Name according to the User Interface. But the formatting seems to get lost once I try to export that information from Square. 

[EJ_ · Accepted solution]

@LocavoreStore I've seen this happen a few times with formatting settings within the application that you're opening the CSV file in. 

Excel is known to do this from time to time, switching how the cell valuse appear. Have you tried checking the format settings within the application you're using?

[LocavoreStore]

Oh my gosh! Thank you @EJ_

I hadn't really thought of that. Sure enough! I opened one of our reports in a text editor and there are my 21 digits in all their glory. Guess I'll just have to change the workflow a little bit. Thanks again!

[EJ_]

You're welcome @LocavoreStore

Glad I was able to help. The formatting can be a pain, so let me know if you run into any more trouble with this.