{"id":92146,"date":"2024-06-10T10:09:59","date_gmt":"2024-06-10T08:09:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/help\/non-knowledgebase\/uncategorized\/how-do-i-prepare-a-csv-file-for-import\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T10:27:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T08:27:23","password":"","slug":"how-do-i-prepare-a-csv-file-for-import","status":"publish","type":"docs","link":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/help\/churchtools-modules\/import-export-people-en\/how-do-i-prepare-a-csv-file-for-import\/","title":{"rendered":"How do I prepare a CSV file for import?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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\u2019t need to rename the columns in your spreadsheet, since our import process includes field mapping. <\/p>\n\n<aside class=\"wp-block-group ct-box ct-box-blue has-background is-vertical is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-1ccdadb1 wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\" style=\"border-radius:8px;border-left-color:#22c55e;border-left-width:0.5rem;background-color:#dcfce7;margin-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--60);margin-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--60)\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"margin-top:0.5rem;margin-right:0.5rem;margin-bottom:0rem;margin-left:0.5rem\"><strong>Tipp<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"margin-top:0rem;margin-right:0.5rem;margin-bottom:0.5rem;margin-left:0.5rem\">Do you still have your data spread across multiple lists or on paper, and do you need to consolidate or digitize it? <br \/>In that case, it\u2019s best to use the <strong>import template<\/strong> we\u2019ve created for your ChurchTools account and fill it in with your data. To do this, open the <em>People module<\/em> and click <em>\u201cImport People\u201d<\/em> in the menu on the left. In the window that opens, download the template.  <\/p>\n<\/aside>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Edit Data<\/h2>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Open your file in a spreadsheet program. Here, you can edit your data as you like. <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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 <em>1. Text<\/em> and <em>2. Date<\/em> below.  <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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 <strong>People &gt; Master Data<\/strong>. For more information, see section <em>3<\/em> below <em>, \u201cSpecifying Master Data as IDs.\u201d<\/em>  <\/p>\n\n<aside class=\"wp-block-group ct-box ct-box-blue has-background is-vertical is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-1ccdadb1 wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\" style=\"border-radius:8px;border-left-color:#3e70ce;border-left-width:0.5rem;background-color:#f3f5f7;margin-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--60);margin-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--60)\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"margin-top:0.5rem;margin-right:0.5rem;margin-bottom:0rem;margin-left:0.5rem\"><strong>Hinweis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"margin-top:0rem;margin-right:0.5rem;margin-bottom:0.5rem;margin-left:0.5rem\">Comments or relationships with other people cannot be imported.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. Text  <\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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\u2014for example, D-12345 or 0151 \/ 12345678.<\/p>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. Date  <\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To import a date, it must be in one of the following formats:<\/p>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>YYYY-MM-DD<\/strong>, e.g., 1980-02-24 <strong>or<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>DD.MM.YYYY<\/strong>, e.g., 02\/24\/1980<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If the date is listed in separate columns for day, month, and year, you can combine it using the following formula, for example:<br\/><p><code>=WENN(C2&lt;&gt;\"\";VERKETTEN(C2;\"-\";TEXT(B2;\"00\");\"-\";;TEXT(A2;\"00\"));\"\")<\/code><br\/>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.<\/p><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">3. Specify master data as an ID  <\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For the <em>Gender<\/em>, <em>Nationality<\/em>, and <em>Marital Status<\/em> fields, ChurchTools uses an <em>ID<\/em> instead of text. The reason for this is to allow for language switching. When importing this information, you\u2019ll need the IDs, which you can find in the <em>People module<\/em> under <em>Master Data<\/em> &gt; <em>Personal Data Fields<\/em>. Use the <em>Find and Replace<\/em> command in your spreadsheet to replace the words in your list with the corresponding IDs. For example, if the <em>ID<\/em> \u201c1\u201d is entered for <em>\u201cmale\u201d<\/em> in the master data table, replace \u201cmale\u201d with \u201c1\u201d everywhere in your table.    <\/p>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">4. Additional fields for individuals or groups<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you want to import additional data for which there are currently no fields in your ChurchTools, you must first create these additional <em>personal data fields<\/em> in the <em>master data<\/em> of the &#8220;People&#8221; module, or create additional <em>group membership fields<\/em> in a group. You can then add these columns to your table. <\/p>\n\n<aside class=\"wp-block-group ct-box ct-box-blue has-text-color has-background has-link-color wp-elements-1 is-vertical is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-1ccdadb1 wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\" style=\"border-radius:8px;border-left-color:#e7c000;border-left-width:0.5rem;color:#3f3400;background-color:#ffe5644d;margin-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--60);margin-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--60)\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"margin-top:0.5rem;margin-right:0.5rem;margin-bottom:0rem;margin-left:0.5rem\"><strong>Warnung<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"margin-top:0rem;margin-right:0.5rem;margin-bottom:0.5rem;margin-left:0.5rem\">You can also meet most of these requirements using groups. First, check whether you really need additional personal data fields, and be sure to read this <a href=\"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/help\/churchtools-module\/weiteres-personen\/0-db-felder\/\" data-type=\"docs\" data-id=\"7313\">information<\/a> beforehand. This article also includes instructions on how to create additional personal data fields.  <\/p>\n<\/aside>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Save File<\/h2>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Once you&#8217;ve completed editing, you can <strong>save<\/strong> the spreadsheet by going to <strong>File &gt; Copy\/Save As&#8230;\/Save As&#8230;<\/strong> 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/help\/churchtools-modules\/import-export-people-en\/how-to-import-personal-data-from-a-file\/\" type=\"docs\" id=\"7469\">importing personal data<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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\u2019t need to rename the columns in your spreadsheet, since our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"doc_category":[480],"doc_tag":[653],"knowledge_base":[224],"class_list":["post-92146","docs","type-docs","status-publish","hentry","doc_category-import-export-people-en","doc_tag-content-outdated-en","knowledge_base-churchtools-modules"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","pp_force_visibility":null,"pp_subpost_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_force_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_subpost_visibility":null,"acf":[],"year_month":"2026-09","word_count":526,"total_views":"1","reactions":{"happy":"0","normal":"0","sad":"0"},"author_info":{"name":"Jasper Stehmeier","author_nicename":"jstehmeier","author_url":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/author\/jstehmeier\/"},"doc_category_info":[{"term_name":"Import\/Export","term_url":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/help\/churchtools-modules\/import-export-people-en\/"}],"doc_tag_info":[{"term_name":"Content outdated","term_url":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/docs-tag\/content-outdated-en\/"}],"knowledge_base_info":[{"term_name":"Modules","term_url":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/help\/churchtools-modules\/","term_slug":"churchtools-modules"}],"knowledge_base_slug":["churchtools-modules"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/docs\/92146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/docs"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/docs"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92146"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/docs\/92146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92250,"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/docs\/92146\/revisions\/92250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"doc_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/doc_category?post=92146"},{"taxonomy":"doc_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/doc_tag?post=92146"},{"taxonomy":"knowledge_base","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchtools.academy\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/knowledge_base?post=92146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}