Organization of test data in messages

The test data must be organized in a normalized form.

The first column must contain an identifier that groups all the data from a particular record. Each subsequent column must be populated according to the following rules:

• Each piece of data for a level of the hierarchy must exist on the same row, including the first child
• Subsequent children must exist on new rows
• A child cannot appear on the same row as the child of its parent's sibling
• The end of the data for a particular depth can be padded out with null values
  Note: When you are creating the test data set, ensure that the Allow null values option is enabled, specifying the string that designates a null value within the data set. For Excel spreadsheets, an empty cell would be permitted by enabling the option and leaving the value field blank. If some other string is used to indicate null values, then that string must be specified.

For an example of test data, see Test data set.