Importing Events from a CSV Spreadsheet
How an organization admin imports or updates events from a CSV file, including event types, locations, attributes and role assignments.
Importing events turns a spreadsheet of shows, conferences or jobs into events in your organization in one pass. The same file can also update events you already have, so a corrected export can be run again without creating duplicates. This page walks through an events import from start to finish. The wizard itself is described in the introduction to Data Import.
Before You Start
You need to be an organization admin. Save your spreadsheet as a CSV file with one header row and one event per row, up to 2,000 rows.
Every imported event is created as a Draft. A draft holds the event's details without activating it, so an import never uses license seats on its own. Activate the events you want to run once they are in.
What a File Can Set
| Field | What the column holds |
|---|---|
| Name | The event's name. Required for every row that creates an event. |
| Location | The name of a location in your organization. |
| Event type | The name of one of your event types. |
| Attributes | Any event attribute your organization has defined, except file attributes. |
| Roles | The name of the crew member or collaborator who fills one of your event roles. |
Attributes come from your organization's whole attribute library, not from one event type, so a single file can carry events of several types. A value for an attribute that a row's type does not show is still stored, and appears if the event later moves to a type that shows it. Required attributes are not enforced at import, because the events are drafts; they are enforced when an event is activated.
A role column only fills the role on events whose type includes that role. On any other row the column is left out, and the preview says so.
Import Your Events
Open the import
Go to your organization's Events table and select Import events. When the table already has events, open the arrow beside the add button and choose Import events there.
Upload file
Map columns
Check that each column in your file points at the right field. Columns named like a field are mapped for you; common headers such as Show, Title or Event map to Name, and Type or Category map to Event type. Choose an Event type to use as the default for rows whose type cell is blank. To update events you already have, choose the column to Match existing records on.
Review values
Resolve any location, event type, option, collaborator or crew name that did not match. You can pick the right one or exclude every row that carries it.
Preview import
Read the counts and the row list. Every row shows whether it will create a draft event, update an event, make no change, or be skipped, and why.
Start import
If you do not choose a column to match on, every row creates a new event. The wizard asks you to confirm that before it continues, because running the same file twice that way creates every event twice.
Updating Events You Already Have
Choosing a column to match on turns the import into an update. Name is the usual choice; a text, link or number attribute that holds your own reference, such as a job number, works too. A row that matches one existing event updates it, and a row that matches nothing creates a new draft. Archived events can be matched and updated.
An update only changes what the file says. A blank cell leaves the event's current value alone, and a column you did not map is not touched, so a file carrying only the columns you changed is enough. An update does not change an existing event's type; the event type column is used only when a row creates an event. How matching decides each row is covered in how rows are matched.
Save the mapping on the preview step if you will import a file in the same shape again. The next import loads it for you. See saved mappings.