Universal import from Excel FAQ
•Will the field values be overwritten when I reimport data from Excel?
•Why do duplicate records appear after import?
•How do I import records to page details?
•How do I import products with characteristics?
•How do I import opportunities with products?
•How do I import leads with customer need types?
•How do I update a single column without modifying other columns during import?
•How do I import records, view results and then roll back any changes made during the import?
•What columns should be included into the import file?
•How do I import users from Excel?
Will the field values be overwritten when I reimport data from Excel?
When you import, bpm’online analyzes the imported file, identifies the columns (using the title row) and then analyzes the data itself. Bpm’online checks whether imported records are duplicates, using the columns that you selected on the corresponding step of the import wizard. It is recommended to select columns that contain unique values (those that uniquely identify each record) to avoid errors and save the data. If the records are identified as duplicates, all field values from the file will overwrite the current values. Otherwise, bpm’online will create new records with the values from the Excel file. If the file contains empty values for imported columns, the corresponding field values in bpm’online will not be deleted.
Why do duplicate records appear after import?
During the import process, bpm’online checks imported records for duplicates. To do this, the system uses the columns that you select on the corresponding step of the import wizard. For the records that were identified as duplicates, existing field values will be replaced with those from the imported file (unless the value in the imported file is empty). If you select the columns that contain values that are not unique, duplicate records will not be identified as such. As a result, bpm’online will import the records from the Excel file as new bpm’online records, thus creating duplicates.
How do I import records to page details?
To import the data on the page detail, go to the detail and select the [Data import] action from the 
button menu. The import page with automatically selected object will open in a new browser tab.
How do I import products with characteristics?
Unlike communication options and addresses, product characteristics cannot be imported along with the product records. The proper import process is divided into several stages.
1.Import a file with all products and general product information, including the [Name] column, as well as additional [Code] and [Price] columns.
2.Next, populate in the [Characteristics] lookup. If there are only a few characteristics, you can add them manually, by specifying name, type and notes. To import characteristics, open the [Characteristics] lookup and run the [Data import] action from the [Actions] button menu. The file for import must contain at least two columns: The “Name” column, which will contain the names of all characteristics, and the “Value type” column with values like “String”, “Integer”, “Decimal”, etc.
3.After adding all product characteristics to the lookup, you can start importing records on the [Features] detail of the [Products] section. This table must contain separate columns for product name, feature name and feature value.
How do I import opportunities with products?
Importing opportunities with products is done in two stages: first import opportunities, then import opportunity products. Prepare an excel file with opportunity records and another file with opportunity products that has columns for opportunity and product names.
1.Go to the [opportunities] section and run the [Data import] action from the [Actions] button menu. Upload the table with opportunities.
2.Open a random opportunity record and run the [Data import] action from the 
button of the [Products] detail. Please note that opportunity names must be unique and match the names of imported opportunities. If you have several opportunities with identical names, the corresponding products will be added to the first opportunity in the list. Likewise, the product names must match the products in the [Product] section. Otherwise, new product records will be added in the [Products] section.
How do I import leads with customer need types?
To import leads with the [Customer need] field, add the corresponding column to the imported Excel file. If the customer need column was not automatically mapped by the Import Wizard, you will need to map it manually. The customer need values in the imported Excel file must match the values in the [Need types] lookup. If the values in the imported Excel file are different from those in the lookup, they will be added to the lookup as new values.
How to import the lookup contents?
To import a lookup contents, populate the columns in the import file that correspond to columns displayed in the lookup (for example the “Name” and “Description” columns). Enter the lookup in which you need to import the data and perform the [Import data] action from the [Actions] button menu. After mapping columns and setting parameters for deduplication, start the data import.
The percentage of profile completion displayed in the list after import is incorrect. How can I update it?
The percentage of profile completion is updated when you open the corresponding account or contact page, save a record or modify calculation rules in the corresponding lookup. Because of this, after importing the displayed percentage of profile completion may be out of date. To update the percentage, run the [Update the profile data population] business process.
How do I update a single column without modifying other columns during import?
To modify values of a single column, add at least one column for connection with section records and duplicate search, and a column with imported data. Any fields that are not represented in the imported Excel file, will not be modified during import.
How do I import records, view results and then roll back any changes made during the import?
Bpm’online is aimed at data accumulation and analysis. In most cases, DBMS functions are used to roll back changes and restore a database to a previous state. There are several options you can use to safely view changes that will be implemented after import:
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Test import and settings by importing small batches of data (2-3 records). In this case, you can delete imported records to roll back the changes.
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You can request a database backup to test and configure the system on a separate site.
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You can use development options to implement automatic regular deletion of unnecessary data.
My import file has separate columns for first, last and middle names, while bpm’online has a single [Full name] field. How do I import contacts?
The [Full name] column in the [Contact] object is required and must be specified in the imported file. If your imported Excel file has separate columns containing first, last and middle names, perform the following simple steps:
1.Create a “Contact name” column in the imported Excel file.
2.Fill in the “Contact name” column. You can use a simple Excel formula to combine text from several cells into one.
3.Save and import the resulting file.
What columns should be included into the import file?
If you are unsure which columns the imported file must contain, use one of the options below to resolve the problem. Open the section where you plan to import records, and create a column in your Excel file for each needed section column.
Alternatively, download an Excel template that contains all columns of the needed object:
1.Open the System Designer.
2.In the [Admin area] block, click the [Advanced settings] link.
3.In the setup menu, select [Import data].
4.In the opened window, in the [Object] field, select the object whose records you plan to import, for example, “Contact”, “City” or “Product”. Enter object name or open the lookup window and use its filtering options.
5.Click the [Download template] button.
An Excel file containing all columns of the selected object will be downloaded. Required columns will be highlighted in orange,
Examples of import files:
How do I import users from Excel?
You can import bpm’online users and portal users from Excel.
Note
Import of users is performed by system administrator.
The import is performed into the “System administration object” object, which corresponds to the “SysAdminUnit” table in the database. This object contains the company organizational structure: users, organizational and functional roles. Every table record refers to a certain type with a specified number (“SysAdminUnitTypeValue”). For example, an organizational role corresponds to “1”, a manager role corresponds to “2”, a user role - to “4”.
If you know what columns should be included into the user import Excel file, download the example of a user import file in accordance with the instructions in the What columns should be included into the import file?“What columns should be included into the import file” article. Select “System administration object” in the [Object] field of the opened window when importing the template (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1 – Downloading the template of a user import file
We recommend populating the following columns in the import file (Fig. 2, Fig. 3):
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“Name” – specify the user login that will be used to log into bpm’online.
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“Type” – specify number “4”, which corresponds to users.
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“Contact” – specify the name of the contact a user is created for. We recommend importing contacts into bpm’online before importing users. The names that you specify in the “Contact” column of your user import file must match the names of these contacts in bpm’online, otherwise the system creates new contacts while importing. Bpm’online also creates a new contact if it does not contain the user contact specified during import.
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“Active” – specify the “true” value.
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“Culture” – specify the “en-US” value.
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“Connection type” – if you import portal users, populate this column with “1” (Fig. 3).
Fig. 2 – Example of column population in the import Excel file for system users
Fig. 3 – Example of column population in the import Excel file for portal users
Upload the prepared file into bpm’online.
Note
Learn more about the import process in a separate article. Read more >>>
During import, after you ad the Excel file to data upload page, click the [Other] button and select “System administration object” as the object for importing file records (Fig. 4).
Fig. 4 Selecting object for import
At the following steps, specify the correspondence of columns in your file to the bpm’online columns and set conditions for verifying the duplicate data. The process of setting up columns and duplicate parameters is covered in a separate article. Read more >>>.
As a result, after you upload the data into bpm’online, the imported records will be displayed in bpm’online user record list.
For the users to be able to log into the system, manually set passwords:
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On the [Contact info] tab of the user pages. We recommend setting general corporate password or the “login=password” combination as a password. When you log into bpm’online for the first time, change the password for your personal one.
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Select the necessary role on the [Roles] tab of the [Organizational roles] detail (for example, “All employees”).
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Distribute licenses on the [Licenses] tab.
See also
•How to import a customer database
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