# Clean CSV data and flag duplicate customer rows

**Use case:** 

Normalize CSV headers, types, dates, and email validation while flagging duplicate customer records.

## Input

```json
{
  "csvText": "Customer ID, Full Name ,Email,Amount,Order Date\nC-001, Alice Smith ,alice@acme.com,1250.50,2026-08-01\nC-001,Alice Smith,alice@acme.com,1250.50,2026-08-01\nC-002, Bob Jones ,not-an-email,-5,invalid-date",
  "format": "auto",
  "normalizeColumnNames": true,
  "trimWhitespace": true,
  "emptyAsNull": true,
  "columnRules": [
    {
      "column": "email",
      "type": "string",
      "required": true,
      "pattern": "^[^@\\s]+@[^@\\s]+\\.[^@\\s]+$"
    },
    {
      "column": "amount",
      "type": "number",
      "required": true,
      "min": 0
    },
    {
      "column": "order_date",
      "type": "date",
      "required": true
    }
  ],
  "deduplicateBy": [
    "customer_id",
    "order_date"
  ],
  "duplicateAction": "flag",
  "caseInsensitiveDuplicates": true,
  "maxRows": 100
}
```

## Output

```json
{
  "_sourceRow": {
    "label": "Source row",
    "format": "integer"
  },
  "_isValid": {
    "label": "Valid",
    "format": "boolean"
  },
  "_isDuplicate": {
    "label": "Duplicate",
    "format": "boolean"
  },
  "_issueCount": {
    "label": "Issues",
    "format": "integer"
  },
  "_issues": {
    "label": "Validation findings",
    "format": "array"
  }
}
```

## About this Actor

This example demonstrates how to use [CSV & Excel Data Quality Cleaner](https://apify.com/automation-lab/csv-excel-data-quality-cleaner) with a specific input configuration. Visit the [Actor detail page](https://apify.com/automation-lab/csv-excel-data-quality-cleaner) to learn more, explore other use cases, and run it yourself.


## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
This Task's input is already configured above — use it as-is rather than inventing a new one.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For full API examples (JavaScript, Python, CLI, MCP, OpenAPI), see this Task's Actor page: https://apify.com/automation-lab/csv-excel-data-quality-cleaner.md

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).