Inkwell Data / Check a file
Check a file for problems
Set simple rules, like "Email must be valid" or "Amount between 0 and 10,000", and see how many rows pass. Download the rows with problems, each one labelled with what is wrong. Save your rules and run them on next month's file.
How it works
Add your file and we suggest rules from your column names and contents, such as a valid email for an Email column or no duplicates for a Customer ID. Change, remove or add rules, then click Check file.
You get a pass rate for every rule with examples of the values that failed, and a list of the rows with problems. Download only the rows that pass, only the problem rows, or the whole file with an issues column added.
Rule sets are saved in this browser and can be exported to a small file to share with a colleague. A rules file holds only the rules, never any of your data.
Questions
Which rules can I use?
Not blank, valid email address, valid phone number, valid date, a number, number between a minimum and maximum, one of a list of allowed values, no duplicates, length between, valid web address, US ZIP code, and a regular-expression pattern for anything else.
Do blank cells fail the rules?
Only the "Not blank" rule. Every other rule skips blank cells, so add "Not blank" to the columns that must be filled in.
Can I re-use my rules next month?
Yes. Click Save rule set and pick it from the list next time. Rules find columns by name, so they still work if the columns arrive in a different order.
How is this different from the profiler?
The profiler tells you what is in a file: types, blanks, top values. Check tells you whether the file meets your rules and gives you the rows that don't.
Are my files uploaded anywhere?
No. Your file is read by your own browser and checked on your device. There is no server receiving your data and no account.
Can it fix the problems it finds?
Many of them. After a check, Fix these automatically lists the fixes it can make (tidy emails, format phones, restore ZIP leading zeros, standardize dates, clean numbers, tidy spellings, remove duplicate IDs) and opens them as steps in Transform, where you can turn off any you don't want before downloading.