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Importing users through CSV

The fastest way to add or modify your users in bulk

Barry Huang avatar
Written by Barry Huang
Updated over a week ago

Purpose

This article describes how to add, modify, or deactivate several employees at once in your TravelBank account Company Settings. This functionality is available to all company administrators.

Audience

This article is intended for company administrators.

Prerequisites

Before getting started, you need to export a .csv file of employees from your HR system of record, make any desired changes, and then format your .csv file to match the TravelBank template. The template file is available at the end of this article, and it is also included in the Import Users dialog box (Figure 1) that appears as you're taking the steps described in "Import your .csv".

When formatting your data, you also need to make sure you have the right department structure. Here’s a refresher on how Departments work at TravelBank.

Format your .csv file of employees

Download the template file at the end of this article, and then ensure that your file is formatted with the correct headers and each row has valid values, as outlined below. You can also use a tool such as csvlint.io to validate your file.

These are the exact column headers, and valid values, that you need in your .csv file:

  • Employee ID: This is an optional field that you can use to track any unique ID associated with each employee in your internal HR systems of record. TravelBank simply stores this value and does not use it in any way

  • First Name: Employee’s first name. Can either be blank or between 2 and 50 characters.

  • Last Name: Employee’s last name. Can either be blank or between 2 and 50 characters.

  • Departments: The department(s) that the employee belongs to. If the employee belongs to multiple departments (up to 20), separate them with a comma (for example, “General,Sales,Support”). TravelBank will create Departments that do not already exist and then add respective employees to them. Department names must be between 2 and 255 characters.

  • Manager Emails: The email of the employee's manager or approver. The department(s) for which the employee is the first-line approver. If the employee is the approver for multiple departments, separate them with a comma (for example, “General,Sales,Support”). TravelBank will create Departments that do not already exist and make the employee an approver for them. Department names must be between 2 and 255 characters.

  • is Admin: If you’d like to grant this employee Administrator privileges to your company’s TravelBank account, input “True” here. Otherwise, input “False” or simply leave blank.

Other general restrictions

  • The file type must be .csv; TravelBank does not accept other file formats at this time.

  • The file must contain the header rows as written exactly above (if in doubt, simply download our template) and must have at least one row of data.

  • The file can be no larger than 10,000 rows. If you have more than 10,000 users to bulk-add or edit, split the data between multiple files.

Import your .csv

Once you have formatted your .csv, you can import the data to TravelBank.

  1. In the sidebar, go to Company Settings > Employees > Employee Directory.

  2. Select “Import” at the top-right of the page. This brings up an Import Users dialog box (see Figure 1).

  3. Select "Upload your .csv file" and select your formatted csv file.

  4. Select "Add". This brings up a "Review CSV Import" screen.

  5. The blue “Accept” button displays the number of changes. Select "Accept" to apply these changes. Or select “Cancel” to discard the changes and try again by uploading a different .csv.

This image shows the Import Users dialog box that appears when users select "Import".

Figure 1. Import Users dialog box

Once you've imported the file

  • New employees are invited.

  • If there were any updates to existing employee data, those changes are reflected. Otherwise, the employee data remains the same.

  • For any new department names TravelBank encountered, we create new departments.

  • If you choose to "Deactivate Excluded Users", any employees missing from the CSV are deactivated in TravelBank's system, and you are prompted to confirm the changes.

  • If you assign more than 20 departments to an employee, the following error message appears (Figure 2):

CSV import error message, Employees assigned to more than the allowed 20 departments. Please review your CSV file and identify the affected employee records. Adjust the department assignments to ensure the employee is not assigned more than 20 departments

Figure 2. Exceeding department limit error message

.csv file template


Publish date: NA

Last update: December 04, 2023

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