Form results incorrectly converting numeric hyphen text field to a date

[Vandykat]

We have a form that includes a radio button question where the possible answers are 1 - 3, 3 - 5, 5 - 7, etc.  When I export the form submissions, the responses have been converted to dates and attempting to reformat the CSV fields only yields an unrelated integer.  This causes us problems processing the results.   How do we get the CSV export to capture the field as text (and NOT assume it's a date)?

[RyGuy]

You should be able to add an ' to the internal value. The issue isnt with CSV or the way it works. The problem is spreadsheet programs will automatically try to format/calculate cells based on what it things is in there, 1-3 looks like a calculation.

Spreadsheet programs will display any cell value that leads with ' as plain text and will not try to format or calculate the value.

[Ben_M]

That sounds like a bug to me.  Have you opened a ticket with support for Hubspot to look into this?

[Vandykat]

Thanks, Ben. We were told we only have access to the Community and to post here and hope for a response 😞

[Ben_M · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately I tested and this is a bug with the system with the CSV export.  I would just recommend doing an Excel export for the time being to avoid this as those formats did not produce the same results for me.  Or consider changing the internal value of the radio button options so that it doesn't read #-#.  Maybe try adding a space in between or changing the hyphen to an underscore (ie: 1_3).

[Vandykat]

Dowloading as XLS instead of CVS solved it.  Thanks, Ben!