Imports

Imports load many records into your organization at once from a spreadsheet, instead of creating them one by one. They are handy when you first set up your organization, or when you move patients over from another system.

What you can import

Type	Each row creates
Users	A staff member, with their roles
Patients	A patient, affiliated with your organization
Locations	One of your organization’s locations
User locations	A link between a staff member and a location they work at
Patient followers	A staff member following a patient
Patient contacts	An emergency or family contact of a patient
Allergies	An allergy on a patient’s record
Chronic diagnoses	A chronic diagnosis on a patient’s record

Rows find the people and places they refer to by email address or name, so import them in order: users and locations first, then user locations; patients first, then their followers, contacts, allergies and diagnoses.

Starting an import

1. Open Imports and choose New Import.

2. Pick what to import. The dialog lists the columns the file needs, which are required, their format, and an example. Choose Download CSV template for a file that already has the right header row.

3. Pick what to do with rows that match a record that already exists:

   Choice	What happens to a matching row
   Fail	It is reported as an error. This is the default.
   Skip	It is left alone and counted neither as imported nor as failed.
   Update	The existing record is updated with the row’s values, where that kind of record can be updated; otherwise the row is skipped.

   A row matches an existing record by its key: a patient’s or staff member’s email, a location’s name, a staff member and location already linked, a patient already followed by that staff member, a contact’s email for that patient, an allergen of the same type for that patient, or a diagnosis of the same disease for that patient. Case does not matter for emails and allergen names. A deleted patient is never matched: rows for them fail.

4. Choose the file (CSV or Excel .xlsx, up to 20 MiB) and select Upload & Import. An empty file, or one over 20 MiB, is refused before it is uploaded.

The import starts in the background, which can take up to 15 minutes; until then it shows as Pending. You can leave the screen; the list keeps updating while anything is running.

Each row is imported as you. A row you could not create by hand, such as an allergy when you may not manage allergies, fails with a reason, even though you may run imports. So does an Update of a record you may not change.

A column with a fixed set of values, such as an allergy type, severity or contact relationship, must hold one of the values the template lists. Anything else fails the row; it is never replaced with a default. A blank optional column is fine: a blank contact method becomes text message.

Following an import

The list shows every import in your organization, newest first: the file, what it imports, its status, how many rows went in and when it started. Filter it by status or type.

Status	Meaning
Pending	Waiting to start. It can still be cancelled.
Processing	Rows are being imported.
Completed	No row failed: each was imported, or skipped as already there.
Partial	Some rows failed and the others were imported or skipped.
Failed	Every row failed, or the file could not be read.
Cancelled	Cancelled before it started.

Validating and Validated are reserved and never shown: imports have no separate checking step.

Select a file name, or View details in its menu, to see the row counts, when it started and finished, and each failed row: its number in the file (the header row is not counted), the column when it is known, and why it failed. The reason names the column at fault but does not repeat what the row contains, such as a patient’s email, since everyone who can see imports can read it: use the row number to find the row in your file.

When your organization has automation rules for new patients or users, each row the import creates runs them, as if you had created it by hand. If a rule could not do everything it asked for (for example, it adds a tag that has since been deleted), the row is still imported and counted as such, and the details list it under Automation rule warnings with the rule’s name and what did not happen. A retry of failed rows does not import it again.

Retrying and cancelling

• Retry imports the same file again as a new import, linked to the first one, and run as you. Use it after fixing what made rows fail, for example once you have been given a permission, or once the users or patients the rows refer to exist. Skip is preselected, so rows the first run already imported are left alone. To import a corrected file, start a new import instead.

  When the import went through the whole file and some rows failed, you can tick Retry failed rows only: the retry then imports just those rows, and the rest of the file is not touched. Failed rows keep their row numbers from the file, so you can still find them there, and retry the retry the same way. The option is not offered for an import that stopped before the end of its file, such as one that was cancelled or whose file could not be read: retry the whole file instead. The details of such a retry are marked Failed rows only, and its row count is the number of rows it retried. A file is imported by one import at a time: while a retry of it is still pending or processing, another retry is refused until it finishes.

• Cancel stops an import that is still Pending. Cancelling does not undo rows that were already imported.

Finished imports, cancelled ones included, are removed automatically seven days after they finish. Once an import is removed, its retries stay and just lose their link to it.

Who sees what

Seeing the Imports screen needs the permission to view imports; it then shows everyone’s imports in your organization. Starting, retrying and cancelling imports needs the permission to manage imports, and the buttons are hidden without it. The Administrator role of a newly created organization has both; in an organization created before imports were available, add them to a role on the Roles screen first. Neither permission lets you create records you could not create otherwise: each row still needs your own permission for that kind of record. A patient row with demographics, such as a birthdate, also needs permission to change demographics.