Member import (archive)

This page carried an older walkthrough of the member importer, built around a fixed table of CSV columns. It is kept because it is linked from elsewhere. Everything you need is now in Member import, checked against the code in this release.

Read the list below if you have an old import file, an old set of notes, or a procedure someone wrote down before this release. Each item is somewhere the old instructions would lead you into an import that does not do what you expect. If you are starting fresh, go straight to Member import instead.

What changed

The column list was never fixed, and is now clearly not. The old page printed a table of thirty-odd columns — uidNumber, mailPreferenceOption, nativeTribe and the rest — as though that were the schema. It is not. The sample file is generated when you press Sample import file, from the accounts table plus every field currently in your hub's profile builder plus the groups and projects columns. Two hubs with different profile schemas get different sample files. Always download a fresh one rather than reusing a column list.

CSV is not the only format. The importer sniffs the file's MIME type and picks a reader; CSV, Excel, JSON and XML all work. The old page's "the import only accepts CSV files" is wrong.

Columns are mapped, not matched by name. After a file is uploaded the importer shows a Field Mapping screen with its guess for each column and lets you correct it. Column names close to the field name — lname, userPassword, emailConfirmed — are recognised automatically.

The import mode labels changed. They now read Overwrite all fields and Modify only non-empty fields. The old page called them Update and Patch, and described Update as "when creating new members", which was never what it meant: the modes decide how a record that matches an existing account is merged.

The "Email new member" parameter does not send a password. It sends the standard account confirmation email, which carries the username and a confirmation link. The old page said it delivered the login and password in plain text.

The "Approved" parameter has no effect in this release. Whether an imported account is approved comes from the record's approved column.

Delivering passwords

The restricted-data procedure from the old page still holds and has been moved into the current chapter, corrected: see Delivering passwords safely. One detail there is worth repeating, because it makes the old page's third step unnecessary — the importer already expires every password it sets, so a new account's owner is forced to change it at first login without anyone editing the account.