I have a quarterly panel data of 20 countries from 2000q1-2012q4. When I import the excel file, both the variables (country and date) turns out to be string variables (appears red in data browser).
Here is the description of the two variables: (for ease of reference, I have dropped dependent and independent variables)

Code:
. des

Contains data
  obs:         1,040                          
 vars:             2                          
 size:        21,840                          
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
              storage   display    value
variable name   type    format     label      variable label
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
country         str14   %14s                  Country
date            str7    %9s                   Date
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then I use the following command to encode the string country variable and now it appears blue in data browser

Code:
. encode country, generate(country_n)

. des country_n

              storage   display    value
variable name   type    format     label      variable label
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
country_n       long    %14.0g     country_n
1. Is it correct?
2. How to convert the date variable correctly? When I create a date variable, I do manage to create the correct date variable but it does not take into account that the data is a panel. Instead of restarting from 2000q1 it continues from 2012q4 (for example, when the first country is completed for the next one date become 2013q1 instead of 2000q1). Alternatively, can I just derive the date variable for the first ID and then keep copy/pasting for the remaining?

Date appears as follows:

Code:
 list country date in 1/10

     +----------------------+
     |    country      date |
     |----------------------|
  1. | Argentina    2000-q1 |
  2. | Argentina    2000-q2 |
  3. | Argentina    2000-q3 |
  4. | Argentina    2000-q4 |
  5. | Argentina    2001-q1 |
     |----------------------|
  6. | Argentina    2001-q2 |
  7. | Argentina    2001-q3 |
  8. | Argentina    2001-q4 |
  9. | Argentina    2002-q1 |
 10. | Argentina    2002-q2 |
     +----------------------+