TFS to Excel - Removing Selected Carriage Returned

[jbarnaby]

We don't know how they do it, but our Data & Analytics team finds carriage returns (CRs) in fields in TFS.  This pushes the data into different columns when copied and pasted into Excel or opened in Excel because every CR means "new row" to Excel.

Because the data in TFS is not uniform from project to project or query to query and because we don't know how many CRs will be in a single field, if any, we don't know how to identify which is the real "new row" CR.  As you've guessed, in order to get the data in the correct columns, we want to remove the the CRs in a single field and retain the CRs that mean "new row."

However, we're open to other fixes that don't concern CRs, if you know of any.

To summarize:

1) We want to move data from TFS to Excel

2) The data MAY have carriage returns for paragraphing in fields

3) Carriage returns are also used to signify a new row in Excel

4) The combination of paragraphing and new rows pushes data into the wrong columns/onto other rows

5) Is there a way to run the data through Alteryx to ensure the fields go into the correct columns on the correct rows?

Any help is greatly appreciated and I'm happy to answer questions to clarify my request.

Thanks!

[jbarnaby]

Regrettably, no.  There is nothing uniform about the data we get out of TFS because too many people are entering and not adhering to any sort of rules.

[mborriero]

@jbarnabyquotes should not be inserted by users, but in the DWH.

I am not an TFS expert, but you should be able to write some SQL in the database before export the data.

something like that:

SELECT '"' + comments + '"' FROM table

This link might help you to interact with your data before export them

https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/docs/setup-admin/tfs/architecture/sql-server-databases

[jbarnaby]

Thank you!  I will look into that.