We came across an interesting use case where a customer who licenses our ExtendInsights Analytics App was exporting a saved search that included item numbers, some of which were being interpreted by Excel as date fields. For example, the item named 11-3-30 was recognized as a date in Excel and came across as 11/3/30.
Below you can see the name field is being interpreted by Excel as a date field.
We wanted to help find a solution that did not require any manual adjustments or macros.
The Solution
What worked for us was to use a NetSuite formula in the search results to reference the name item name field and to prefix the name with a single quote which forces Excel to treat the value as text. In order to do this with a NetSuite formula, you need to use four single quotes in the CONCAT formula as seen below.
CONCAT('''', {name})
Below you can see the new item field name created with the formula which Excel now treats as a general format.
