New studio: Import event data from Excel sheet

This article describes the steps to take when you want to import your event data from an Excel sheet.

Step 1: Download the template

To import from an Excel, a template that contains the right column headers needs to be downloaded first. Click Import/Export at the top right and select Import from Excel sheet.

In the modal that opens, choose Download template. The file will be saved to your computer right away.

For each category (program items, institutions, persons, tags and places) a different template is exported. 

As objects might be related to each other, such as a programme items containing speakers and a location, it's best to start with the categories that have the least dependencies. This will allow you to refer to it in other objects later on. In practice, this means to work from right to left: start by adding the places and end with the programme items.

Step 2: Add your data

In the template, add the data or copy it from another sheet. Per category and per type, different columns are available, based on the information that can be added and the sections that are defined. After adding all the data, save your file and make sure to remember the location where it's saved, so you can easily select it in the following step.

In the list below, the general columns that are available for objects of all categories are explained.

• id: this is the id of the object. This id is used to identify the object, so it should be unique in this event. Make sure that when importing from different spreadsheets, there are no overlapping ids in them. The id is also used to link to this object from other objects, for example to a person in a programme item.
  Best practice is to use the name of the object with a prefix of the type name, so that you can easily recognise it or refer to it from another object. Some examples: room_A, booth_12, person_janedoe, session_PG01, tag_oralabstract. Please note that the id should not contain spaces.
• name: the full name of the person, place, programme item, etc. To make sure they are not truncated, we recommended them to be less than 50 characters for programme items (two lines) and less than 25 for all other data types (one line).
• subtitle: the subtitle displayed on both list and detail pages, unless overwritten by subtitleDetail. Recommended to be less than 25 characters to not be truncated.
• subtitleDetail: overwrites the subtitle on detail pages.
• configuratorType: this is the type under which an object is imported. If you've added an example of each type before making the export, you will have the right type names. These can be copied to other objects of the same type. Some examples: person:person, timeslot:presentation, place:booth.
• info: depending on the category and type, this can contain the biography, session info, abstract, company description, etc. You can either add unformatted text, which will be added as basic text, or HTML.
• orderingName: by default, lists are sorted alphabetically. To change this order, you can add an order name or number. For persons, this is for example the the last name, for presentations it can be a number.

Other columns are:

• parent: for programme items, you can add the id of the item under which this one is nested. For example for presentations, you add the id of the session in which it is located. 
• date, startTime, endTime: for programme items, the date should be entered as YYYY-MM-DD, the time as HH:mm (24h).
• placeId_1: this is used mainly for institutions and program items. Add the id of the location here.
• classifierId_1: here you can add the id of the tags you want to assign to this object.
• roleId_role:speaker_1, roleId_role:chair_1, etc: here, the persons ids of the people with that role should be added.
• websiteUrl, websiteName: for institutions, you can add the website name and URL here that is displayed in the header.
• videoUrl: for institutions, you can add a link to a YouTube or Vimeo video here. This is then displayed on the Info tab.
• email, firstName, lastName: for persons, you can fill this to directly create an attendee on the attendee list. The person is then linked to this attendee, allowing other attendees in the app to send him or her messages, contact requests, etc.

Please note that if you want to add another place, tag or person with the same role, you can just duplicate the column and change _1 in _2, for example classifierId_2.

Step 3: Verify your data

Select the tab of the category you are going to import, click Import/Export at the top right and select Import from Excel sheet. Click the purple Start import button.

Drag the file in the file upload area, or click to open the file browser to locate it.

After the file is uploaded, the Verify data button becomes active. You can remove the file to select another one with the trashcan icon.

For programme items, you will have to choose in what schedule you want to add the data. The available schedules depend on the types created in the data types.

When clicking Verify data, the system checks if the file is ready to be imported. There are two possible issues:

• Errors are marked in red. The import cannot continue; you have to fix the error and re-upload the file. An example: a reference to an object that does not exist.
• Warnings are marked in orange. You can continue with the import, but some data is not imported. An example: a column name that is not supported.

After fixing the warnings and errors, you can re-upload the file until there are no more warnings, or until you decide to ignore the warnings. 

Step 4: Import your data

When clicking Import data, your data is imported into the studio.

Please note that if you use the Excel import to make changes to objects that are imported from a channel, this channel data will be overwritten and your changes will be locked.

Step 5: Add additional data in the studio

Some data cannot be set in the Excel file. Just open the detail page and add the data after the import.

• Program items: sponsor logo's, session banners, virtual room settings.

• Institutions: a company logo, custom background image, banner or slideshow images, contact information.

• Persons: profile pictures.

• Classifiers: a colour or an icon, for example for certain session types.

• Places: the position on the floor plan.