Importing Users

LEARN allows you to quickly and easily manage users via CSV files so that users can be imported, activated, or deactivated in the platform in one action. CSV files are also useful to assign team members to managers.

Log into your platform as an admin. Access the Admin Menu by clicking the cog icon in the top right corner of the page. In the E-Learning Section, press the Users item. On the User Management page, press the folder button in the top right section of the page, then press the Manage Users via CSV button.

What are CSV (.csv) files?

Comma-Separated Values (CSV) files store tabular data in plain text. Each line of a CSV file is a data record/row. Each record/row consists of one or more fields/columns separated by a delimiter.

CSV files can be created with a number of software programs (i.e. Excel, Google Sheets, Notepad, TextEdit, Emacs). The content within the file must follow the CSV Standard format, and the file must have a “.csv” file extension.

How are CSV files generally formatted?

CSV files should follow a standard format:

• Fields/columns are separated by a single character delimiter, typically a comma or semicolon.
• Each record/row is terminated by a new line.
• All records/rows have the same number of fields/columns in the same order.
• The first record/row may be a header that contains the field/column names of each field/column.
• Data within each field is interpreted as a sequence of characters, or plain text.
• Any field may be quoted within double-quote characters.
• A field should be quoted when it contains one or more special characters.
• Leading and trailing spaces are considered part of the data in a field.

How are CSV files used to create and update user accounts?

User accounts in your platform consist of a number of user data fields. Each of these fields may or may not be populated with data, depending on which fields you’ve filled out when creating the user.

To create a user, you should at least populate the user fields that are mandatory for creating a user account (username and password). To update an existing user account, you only need to include the username. Both creating and editing users (either one user at a time or multiple users at a time) can be done manually, or by importing user data fields into the platform via a CSV file.

For the second option, each user account that you intend to create, or update is represented by a record/row in the CSV file. Each user data field is represented by a field/column in the file.

Import the CSV file to the platform, then map the contained data to the corresponding user fields supported by the platform. By doing so, you’re creating and updating user accounts.

What are the acceptable values for default user data fields?

Refer to the table below to learn how to properly configure the values in your CSV file to ensure a successful mapping to the platform user data fields.

Importing Users via CSV

For a successful upload, it is important to create a .CSV file properly formatted. In order to view a correct example, select Download a Sample CSV File item in the slide out panel. Once your file is ready, you can drag and drop it into the upload section of the slide out panel or press the Browse button to find the file.

The maximum file size of a CSV file that you’re able to import into your platform for a user upload is 3MB.

Once uploaded, press the Advanced Settings title to view the additional settings. The system is configured to automatically detect the Field Separator, which is needed in order to organise the information by columns. Information can be additionally organised by a comma, a semicolon, or manually, depending on your needs.

Then, flag the option that the first row is considered a Header (only if this fits your CSV file format), and select the File Charset from the dropdown menu. For the File Charset, we recommend UTF-8, which is standard. Please remember to use quotation marks to delimit the text content. Press Confirm to upload your .csv file.

The system will then process your CSV file. Once ready, you will be redirected to the import page. In the left panel, inside the Import Options section, configure the following options:

General Import Options

This section gathers several parameters concerning the import procedure:

• Force users to change their password at their first login. When this option is activated, users will immediately be asked to change their password after the initial login to the platform.  
• Do not force password change for existing users. When this option is flagged, any existing users in the platform that also exist in the newly imported CSV file will not have to update their passwords like new users (if the Change password at first sign in option is also activated).

Update Users

This option allows you to configure how the information of existing users will be updated upon importing the CSV file. When this option is flagged, the imported information for users already existing in the platform will overwrite any existing user information if the user branch remains unchanged. If the branch specified in the CSV file is different from the one currently assigned to users, you can decide whether to copy or to move the users involved in the update to the newly assigned branch.

Destination Fallback Branch 

This section is used for the configuration of a branch when the destination branch field is not mapped in the CSV file. Select whether to:

• Do Nothing. When this option is selected, and the CSV file includes users to be updated, user information will not be updated, users will remain unchanged. If the CSV file includes new users, they will be created in the LEARN root folder.

•  Use existing branch. When this option is selected, updated users will be moved in one of the existing branches, selectable from the dropdown menu.

The Preview section will display a preview of the CSV file as read by the system. Drag and drop the fields into the Preview section on the right to match the fields with the column names of your CSV file.

Please Note: The correct format for Date Format field is YYYY-MM-DD.

Once you’ve matched the fields for all of your columns, review all of the info on the import page, then press the Import button at the bottom of the page. Confirm the information in the pop-up message that appears, then press Import Users.

The import job happens in the background. In case of any errors, an error file will be made available for download. To find this file, access the Admin Menu, then select the Background Jobs item. Find the job in the list to download the file. You will also receive an email after the import has taken place to confirm whether the job has completed successfully.

All users that have been imported into the platform will appear in the list of users on the User Management page, where you can edit their profile or delete them from the platform as necessary.