Importing data into Administrate

Overview

The Import feature enables organizations to import and manage their data at scale. Users can create or update records in bulk for Accounts, Contacts, Events, Course Templates, Resources, and all other entities in the system. This tool automates the data upsert process, eliminating manual, repetitive tasks and reducing errors.

Why We Built This

Teams entered data manually or waited for support to help with large imports. Both options wasted time. We built this tool to fix that problem.

Who this helps:

• Implementation teams load data faster during setup.
• Customers update large amounts of data in bulk without waiting for support.
• The tool removes the bottleneck. You move data in bulk. You do it yourself.

What Is It?

The import tool uses our GraphQL API to handle large data uploads. When we add new entities, fields, or operations to the API, they show up in the import tool automatically. No waiting for updates.

You pick what you want to import, such as Events. You pick what you want to do, such as Create or Update. Then you provide your data using whichever file works best for you: download our Excel template, generate a report from Administrate, or upload your own file. Once uploaded, you map your columns to Administrate fields and review the validation results before the import runs.

That's the process.

The system processes imports asynchronously, providing detailed success and failure reports for visibility into import results.

Key Features

• Universal Entity Support
• Custom Fields Support
• Directly leverages the GraphQL API schema to stay consistent with platform capabilities.
• Auto Scalable
• Detailed Error Reporting
• Advanced lookup options: customize lookups to find records by name, ID, or other supported fields.
• Flexible file options: use our Excel template, a generated report, or your own file.
• Smart header matching: column headers and values are matched to Administrate fields automatically where possible, with manual control when needed.
• Pre-import validation: your data is checked before the import runs, so you can fix issues on screen or by re-uploading.
• Guided Excel template: List and Option fields include dropdowns of valid values, and hovering over a header cell reveals the field's type, description, and supported lookup values.

How It Works

Pick Entity and Operation, such as Accounts and Create → Provide your file (Excel template, report, or your own) → Map your column headers to Administrate fields → Review validation results and fix any issues → Submit → Queue → Background processes import → Result shown with error reporting.

Each row in your file becomes an individual GraphQL mutation call, processed with the same validation and business logic as manual operations through the UI or API.

Message and Positioning

Every enterprise platform has import tools. Ours works differently. We built it on our GraphQL API. The same API we use internally. You get the same power we have.

Keep it simple if you want. Upload a file. Update some records. Done.

Or go deeper. Use the full API surface. If an operation exists in our API, you can bulk-process it through the import tool.

Use cases

• Implementation/onboarding: New customer with thousands of accounts, learners, or courses from their legacy system.
• Seasonal Training Scheduling: Training coordinators can bulk import scheduled events and publish them immediately, eliminating hours of manual session creation.
• Data Clean-up Updates: Admins can process bulk updates, such as event cancellations, in a single operation instead of updating each record individually through the UI.

How To Guide

Navigate to Settings → Import Tool in your Administrate instance.

Click the Import Data button to begin a new import.

Follow the instructions on screen.

Configuring and Running Your Import

Choose the entity you want to import, such as Events, Course Templates, or Accounts.

Choose whether you want to use the template we provide (Excel Template) or provide your own. The benefit from using our template is that it comes with list options, and formatting to help ensure the right data format is provided.

After selecting your header, you can now match the headers between the template and Administrate. Most should be automatically matched. Value matching lets you map specific values in your file to the equivalent values in Administrate. For example, matching what empty values should mean in Administrate is optional, but doing so allows you to override blank cells with default values during the import.

Before your import is submitted to the queue, Administrate validates your data and shows you the results on screen. If issues are found, you can fix them directly on screen, or correct your source file and re-upload it.

What validation typically checks

• File structure: headers are present where expected, and columns are consistent.
• Required fields: required columns are present and mapped. If a required column is missing from your file, Administrate will add it automatically and mark it as required.
• Mapping integrity: fields are mapped to compatible Administrate fields (e.g., date fields mapped to date columns).
• Data formatting: common issues such as invalid dates, invalid email addresses, or incorrect country/province codes are checked. Many of these are automatically corrected for you.

 If any issues are found, you can fix them directly on screen, or correct your file and re-upload it.

Running and reviewing an import

Once your file is prepared and your import settings are confirmed, Administrate queues the import for processing.

After the import runs, review the results carefully. Confirm which records were created, updated, skipped, or returned errors before relying on the imported data operationally.

For larger imports, run a small pilot first and verify the results before processing the full file.

Verifying imported data

After an import completes, verify the imported records before relying on the data operationally.

Recommended verification steps include:

• Confirm expected record counts were imported.
• Review validation warnings, skipped rows, partial results, or failed rows.
• Verify that relationships and lookup fields resolved to the correct records.
• Confirm required fields populated as expected.
• Spot-check imported records in the application UI.

Verification is especially important when importing updates to existing records, working with relationship-heavy data, or processing large datasets.

What Happens After You Upload

Many issues are caught during validation, before the import runs. Once the import has run, check the results, fix any remaining errors, and re-upload if needed. Success files show what got created. Failure files tell you what went wrong.

When Things Go Right

Your import worked. Download the success file to see what you created.

The first column shows the ID for each resource. You can use this ID to find or update the resource later.

When Things Go Wrong

Some rows failed. Download the failure file to see why.

The first column explains the error for each failed row. Read the message to understand what needs fixing.

Fix and Re-Upload

You can edit the failure file and upload it again. The error column stays in the file, but you can remove it if you want. Administrate ignores that column.

Steps to fix:

1. Download the failure file.
2. Read the error messages.
3. Fix the problems in your data.
4. Upload the file again.
5. The process repeats until everything imports successfully.

When You Need Help

If you see "Unknown Error" in your failure file, something unexpected happened. Contact the support team and send them your failure file so they can investigate.

Helpful Tips

• You can reorder columns.
• You can delete columns marked as Optional.
• You can edit the lookup to look up on supported fields, for example: Lookup(account, emailAddress) will find the account by the email address.
• When using our Excel template, hover over a header cell to see the field's type, description, and supported lookup values.

For further information, see the GraphQL API documentation for the entity you're importing.

Common import error patterns

Most import failures fall into a small number of repeatable patterns. Understanding these patterns makes troubleshooting significantly faster.

Identifier and matching errors

• Records fail to update because identifiers do not match existing records.
• Duplicate records are created because matching fields are missing or incorrect.
• Lookup fields reference records that do not exist or are inaccessible.

Validation and formatting errors

• Required fields are missing.
• Date, numeric, or boolean values use invalid formats.
• File structure issues prevent proper parsing.

Relationship and dependency errors

• Dependent records are imported before prerequisite records exist.
• Referenced entities are unavailable in the current company or visibility context.

For detailed troubleshooting workflows and failure interpretation, see:

• Troubleshooting: Import Errors 
• Import Processing Model (How Imports Behave) 

Troubleshooting

Handling Failures

If you see "Unknown Error" in your failure file, contact our support team. Provide the date and time of your import.

Known Issues

We're getting these resolved as soon as possible.

• Rows processed don't include success vs failure.
• Some formatting issues occur when you download failed files.
• If there are no successful or failed files, the option should be disabled.

Documentation by workflow

Use the articles below for deeper reference or entity-specific import guidance:

• Import Data: Overview & Workflows
• Import Processing Model (How Imports Behave)
• Prepare your file for import
• Troubleshooting: Import Errors

Need help?

• If your import is Partial or Failed, download the failure file first and correct errors before re-uploading.
• If results look unexpected, such as duplicates or incorrect updates, stop and review your identifiers and matching logic before running another batch.