SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

3693267 - #NAME? appears in column names during .csv table export in SAP Analytics Cloud(SAC)

Symptom

#NAME? appears in column names during .csv table export in SAC

Environment

SAP ANALYTICS CLOUD 2025.21.9 

Reproducing the Issue

  1. Login to the SAC tenant.
  2. Open the story.
  3. Click on more option of a table
  4. click on export
  5. Choose the file type as .csv and the scope as point of view.

Notice: The data in the generated .csv file is in #NAME? format 

Cause

  • This issue occurs due to Microsoft Excel's interpretation of CSV files.  
  • When a value starts with a hyphen (e.g., "- Data"), Excel treats it as a formula, resulting in #NAME? if the text does not match a valid function.  

Resolution

1. Add a leading space before the hyphen (e.g., " -Data").  
2. Alternatively, use a Unicode dash character (—) instead of the standard ASCII hyphen (-).  

See Also

Keywords

#NAME? error, CSV export issue, table export error, SAP Analytics Cloud bug, column name error, Excel formula error, hyphen interpretation issue, CSV file format problem, data export issue, SAC table export, SAC CSV export, SAC column error, SAC data issue, SAC export problem, SAC troubleshooting , KBA , LOD-ANA-UNS-EXP , Unified Story PDF/PPT/Excel/CSV Export , Problem

Product

SAP Analytics Cloud 1.0