Importing People from a Spreadsheet

If your directory already lives in a spreadsheet or another church system, you don't have to retype it. Export it as a CSV and import the whole thing at once. Nothing is saved until you've seen exactly what the import will do.

Preparing your file

Every row is one person, and the file needs a first name and last name column. Everything else is optional — import the columns you have and fill in the rest later.

Tip

Column names don't have to match exactly. First Name, first_name and Given Name are all read as the same column, and the same goes for email, phone, address, date of birth and the rest. Columns we don't recognize are listed on the review screen so you can spot a misnamed one.

Dates can be written as 2024-03-12 or 3/12/2024. Membership status accepts the words most systems export — member, active, visitor, guest, attender, inactive. Import up to 5,000 people at a time.

Running the import

Open the importer

From your admin dashboard, go to People and choose Import. It's on both the Everyone and Members pages.

Upload your CSV

Drop the file in, or download the template first and paste your data into it. Files up to 10MB are accepted.

Review what will happen

You'll see a count of who is new, who you already have, who needs a decision, and any rows that couldn't be read. Expand a row to see every field it will bring in.

Decide about people you already have

Pick one of three options for anyone already in your directory: fill in blanks only (the safe default — it never replaces something you maintain by hand), replace with the spreadsheet, or leave them untouched.

Settle the rows marked “needs a decision”

These are rows where the name is close to someone you already have, but the email doesn't confirm it. Choose the right person from the list, or say it's someone new. You can also check Don't import this row to leave one out.

Import

The button tells you how many people you're about to import. Click it, and you'll get a summary of what was added, updated and skipped.

Note

People imported without a membership status come in as visitors. Change anyone's status later from their profile, or set a status column in your file.

How duplicates are handled

A row that matches someone by email is treated as that person — no second record is created. If the email belongs to someone who already has an account at another church on the platform, they're added to your directory using that same account rather than a new one.

Rows with no email are matched by name, and because names repeat, those are always shown to you for a decision rather than merged automatically. An email that appears twice in one file is imported once, and the review screen tells you which row it came from.

Warning

Choosing replace with the spreadsheet overwrites existing phone numbers, addresses and other details with whatever your file says. If your export is older than your directory, use fill in blanks only instead.

Permissions

Importing requires the members.create permission — the same one needed to add a person by hand. See roles for who has it.