Supported file formats
Which files Kanban Importer reads, including CSV, Excel xlsx, OpenDocument ods and JSON, and what to do with a format it cannot open.
Kanban Importer reads the files you already have, without a conversion step.
Spreadsheets
| Format | Notes |
|---|---|
.csv | Comma, semicolon, tab or pipe separated. The separator is detected for you |
.tsv, .tab | Tab separated |
.xlsx, .xlsm | Excel workbooks, read directly |
.ods, .fods | OpenDocument, what LibreOffice exports |
Excel dates arrive as real dates rather than five digit serial numbers, and a time is kept when the cell has one. Quotes, commas and line breaks inside a cell survive, and so does a gap in the middle of a row.
If a workbook has several sheets, the first sheet that actually contains rows is used, so a cover sheet does not win.
JSON
| Shape | Example |
|---|---|
| An array of objects | [{"Title": "Fix login", "List": "Backlog"}] |
| An object wrapping one | {"cards": [...]}, also issues, items, tasks, data, results |
| Newline delimited | One object per line, as API dumps produce |
| A Trello board export | List ids, labels, members and checklists are resolved for you |
| Nested exports | Jira and Linear style, where the useful fields live under fields |
Nested objects are expanded one level, so a Jira issue's fields.summary and fields.status become columns you can map. Columns that are empty in every record are dropped, which keeps a large export from filling the screen with blanks.
Google Sheets
Export the sheet first. File, then Download, then either Comma separated values (.csv) or Microsoft Excel (.xlsx). Both work.
Formats it cannot read
The old binary .xls. It is a different format from .xlsx despite the similar name. In Excel or Sheets choose Save as and pick .xlsx or .csv.
.numbers, .pdf, .docx. These do not hold table data in a form that can be read reliably. Export to .csv or .xlsx first.
If you offer a file it cannot read, it says so plainly and tells you what to do rather than importing something wrong.