Excel + Jaspersoft - Sometimes they don't place nice! :)

Scenario:  You are working on a JasperReport and using a static tab-delimted data file.  In order to test your report, you need data across a wide range of student responses.  So you go into the static tab-delimited file, tweak some data, re-save as a tab-delimited text file, and go back into JasperSoft.

All of a sudden - the report isn't working!  But you didn't change anything in the report itself, did you?  But now you have all sorts of data errors.

Well, thanks to Franck's advice, I learned why.  Even with csv or tab-delimited files, Excel can wreak havoc on your test files by adding hidden characters.  This will throw off Jaspersoft date fields.  

So lesson learned.  Extract data from Illuminate using the normal tab-delimited report or extract.  But then never open it up and resave it in Excel - as this may create issues.

Thanks Franck!