Import Excel and CSV Files

When the import is from Excel files or CSV files, you can choose between either importing a specific file or importing all matching files in a specific folder.

To create a custom import-mapping, People Planner must have an initial file to learn the expected format from.

To select a file to import:

1. In the Local sample file path field, click Select File. Alternatively, you can drag and drop your file into this field.
2. Select the file that you want to import.

You can now create the custom import mapping as described in Import from an Excel File and Import from a CSV File.

If this is all you do, when the import runs, it looks for a file by the exact name and path and import the data from that. To import new data, you overwrite the existing file with a file with the new data and run the import again.

For this to work, it is important that the new file always have exactly the same name and location.

However, if your file has a name that changes, for example, because the filename includes a timestamp that indicates when it was created, you can instead choose to keep the directory-name constant and then import all the files from the folder.

To indicate that you want to import all files from a specific folder:

1. Select the Import Multiple Files checkbox.
   Note: This is only supported for single mapping.
2. In the File search pattern field, enter a file mask for the files you want to import.

The format of all the imported files must be the same as the file that is used to define the import-mapping. You can have files for different import-mappings in the same folder, but then you must distinguish between them in theFile search pattern field.

For example, if you are defining an import mapping to import resources, you can specify that you are only interested in the files where the name is prefixed with "Employee":

If the folder contains more than one file that fulfils your file search pattern, they are imported in the order of the oldest file first.

Note: When you define the task specification on top of the custom import mapping, you can specify that files to be imported shall be moved out of the folder and into a different folder. This way you are sure that the import will not import the file more than once. See Tasks.

Once you have finished adding all files for import, you can click the Validate Import button to check whether all prerequisites have been met to allow the import mapping to run correctly. Validation includes the following:

• The file exists on the server.
• The user has the correct permissions to run a custom import mapping.
• The service is running.