A column with a text format in Excel to remain when imported into looker studio

[navianda]

Hi all, 

I have an excel file which contains a column (formatted as Text). The values are as follows 2.2, 2.3, 2.20, 2.22.

However, once I import them into looker studio, the column is automatically read as number and the value of 2.20 becomes 2.2. Although I went to 'Resource' --> 'Manage added data source' to change the type there from number to text. 

I followed some advice from the internet saying that I need to ensure the format in excel is text, or i can simply format the number in looker studio by having 2 decimal numbers (although this will only transform the original 2.2 into 2.20 instead. So what i want is that the numbers will be the same as shown in excel.. 2.2 remains 2.2 and 2.20 remains 2.20 as text. 

Can anyone help please? 

[Lobo-Google]

Hi @navianda, thanks for your post! 

It seems that this may be a bug - the Excel connector recently went GA from experimental, so it may be an issue that was not encountered during the experimental phase. You can file an issue report with our team by following the instructions here: https://support.google.com/looker-studio/answer/13606940 

In the meantime, I did find a workaround on a Reddit post that hopefully may be helpful: https://www.reddit.com/r/PPC/comments/16bpw3r/text_importing_as_numbers_in_looker_studio/