Uploading Member Data

You can upload a CSV (spreadsheet) of member data to create or update member data.

Easiest way to get started is to download a spreadsheet of members, selecting “Use database field names for headings (good for re-uploading)”. If you create a spreadsheet from scratch, save in UTF-8 format if you used any special characters.

Text with a leading zero (e.g. phone area code, USA zipcode) should be preceded with a single quote (‘) to prevent the spreadsheet turning it into a number and thereby removing the leading zero.

The first row must contain field names. These must match the database fields. The “membernumber” field must be included, all other fields are optional. You can delete columns that aren’t going to be updated. Always delete the “balance” column as that can’t be updated.

Subsequent rows in the spreadsheet use membernumber to check for an existing member. If one exists, the fields in the uploaded file will overwrite the existing member data for that member.

If the membernumber field in any row does not match an existing entry in the database, a new member will be created.

A column headed “memberclass” should contain the full Member Class Title taken from the memberclass table.

A column headed PrincipalMember can be used to link e.g. a family member to their principal member. Enter the principal member (if any) using their Member Number into this column.

Dates should be in format: j/n/Y e.g. 31/5/2017, or n/j/Y for America, e.g. 5/31/2017.

If you use Open Office, you can select UTF-8. UTF-8 is necessary if you used any special characters (e.g. accents, emdash, etc).

Choose UTF-8 as the character set to use:

Google Docs is also OK.

Excel is tricky, so be careful not to include special characters unless you can get it to save in UTF-8.

Mac in general will not save CSV correctly (non-standard line-end characters). Transfer spreadsheet to Windows or Linux and export as CSV there.