Thanks for your prompt response! By "does not work", I meant the field, "Result", is still imported as numerical variable (i.e., the character values were set to missing in my temporary sas dataset). Here I am attaching a testing dataset, which includes the three fields (patient, test_name, result). The result field can have either number of CD4 count or positive/negative test result, depending on the associated lab test name. The following text is the log when I ran my code: 617 proc import file="C:\Users\Enoch\Desktop\SAS 9.4\test_Excel.xlsx" out=test6 617! DBMS=Excel replace; 618 DBDSOPTS= "DBTYPE=(Result='CHAR(20)')"; 619 run; NOTE: WORK.TEST6 data set was successfully created. NOTE: The data set WORK.TEST6 has 130 observations and 3 variables. NOTE: PROCEDURE IMPORT used (Total process time): real time 0.37 seconds cpu time 0.12 seconds The imported result field was set to missing for character values:
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