If you already have the data you want to import into ChurchTools as a CSV or Excel file, you can follow the instructions in this article to edit the data and prepare your file so that you can import it without any problems. You don’t need to rename the columns in your spreadsheet, since our import process includes field mapping.
Edit Data #
Open your file in a spreadsheet program. Here, you can edit your data as you like.
When you import external data into ChurchTools, you must, of course, specify exactly what kind of information it is, and it must be in a format that ChurchTools can read. In ChurchTools, information is stored as text (letters, numbers, and special characters) and dates in the formats listed below. For more information, see sections 1. Text and 2. Date below.
Since ChurchTools is multilingual, data for gender, nationality, and marital status are represented by IDs and displayed in the respective language. You can look up which IDs correspond to which meanings under People > Master Data. For more information, see section 3 below , “Specifying Master Data as IDs.”
1. Text #
Most of the information is in text format and can be imported directly. You can store letters from A to Z, as well as numbers and special characters. This also includes phone numbers and ZIP codes, since they can contain letters—for example, D-12345 or 0151 / 12345678.
2. Date #
To import a date, it must be in one of the following formats:
- YYYY-MM-DD, e.g., 1980-02-24 or
- DD.MM.YYYY, e.g., 02/24/1980
- If the date is listed in separate columns for day, month, and year, you can combine it using the following formula, for example:
=WENN(C2<>"";VERKETTEN(C2;"-";TEXT(B2;"00");"-";;TEXT(A2;"00"));"")
In this example, the day is in column A, the month is in column B, and the year is in column C. You can then enter the formula in column D, for example.
3. Specify master data as an ID #
For the Gender, Nationality, and Marital Status fields, ChurchTools uses an ID instead of text. The reason for this is to allow for language switching. When importing this information, you’ll need the IDs, which you can find in the People module under Master Data > Personal Data Fields. Use the Find and Replace command in your spreadsheet to replace the words in your list with the corresponding IDs. For example, if the ID “1” is entered for “male” in the master data table, replace “male” with “1” everywhere in your table.
4. Additional fields for individuals or groups #
If you want to import additional data for which there are currently no fields in your ChurchTools, you must first create these additional personal data fields in the master data of the “People” module, or create additional group membership fields in a group. You can then add these columns to your table.
Save File #
Once you’ve completed editing, you can save the spreadsheet by going to File > Copy/Save As…/Save As… as a CSV-UTF8 file, and your file will be ready for import. To learn how to import your data into ChurchTools, see our guide on importing personal data.