Managers can use this tool if they have a large number of approved leave requests they would like to upload to Deputy:
- Before you begin
- What data fields are imported?
- How do I bulk-add leave requests?
- Viewing uploaded leave requests in Deputy
- View import history
- Sample CSV template
Before you begin
Read Getting started with bulk import and update using data from a CSV file.
Before you can bulk import or bulk update information in your Deputy account please ensure you have the access level permission of a System Administrator or Location Manager.
Note: Location Managers can only bulk import or update team members' leave requests for the locations that they manage.
You will also need a spreadsheet prepared with your leave request data in it and saved as a CSV or Excel file.
Please ensure that all team members you are uploading leave requests for already have the relevant leave entitlements assigned in their employee profile in Deputy.
All leave requests uploaded using the bulk upload method will be uploaded as Approved leave and the manager comments and leave approval will be attributed to the manager who completed the bulk upload.
Team members will be notified that their manager has approved their leave request as soon as the file is uploaded.
What data fields can be imported?
Please find below a list of fields and respective validations for each data set you can bulk import:
| Field | Example | Mandatory | Validations |
| jackjohnson@email.com | YES | Must be unique as this field is the primary identifier to match the correct team member. | |
| All Day Flag |
Options are:
|
NO but if you leave the cell empty the field will default to FALSE during import. |
If you select TRUE then Deputy will upload this leave request for All day. If you select FALSE then you will need to enter a start and end time in the appropriate fields |
| Start Date |
First date of leave. Use format YYYY-MM-DD |
YES | Must be in format shown in example |
| Start Time |
Time of the day that leave will start. Use 24 hour time HH:MM |
NO | You can leave blank if you have entered TRUE in the All Day Flag field |
| End Date |
Last date of leave. Use format YYYY-MM-DD |
YES | Must be in format shown in example |
| End Time |
Time of the day that leave will end. Use 24 hour time HH:MM |
NO | You can leave blank if you have entered TRUE in the All Day Flag field |
| Leave Type | Enter the name of a valid leave type in my account | YES |
Must match leave types in Deputy exactly. The leave type must be already assigned to the team member in their profile If the leave name does not |
| Comments | Enter free text if you need to add a comment | NO | |
| Roster Override |
Enter one of the following text options:
|
YES - if you leave a cell in your spreadsheet empty you will be asked to chose from one of these three options or not import the row of data. | This selection will inform Deputy what you want to happen in the event your team member is already scheduled for a shift during the leave request period you are uploading |
How do I bulk upload leave requests?
Create your leave request spreadsheet
To create your leave request spreadsheet, you can use our template file to add your own data.
Since your team member's email address is the primary identifier for your team member in the bulk upload process you might find it easier to download a copy of the team member data into one spreadsheet file and then use it to copy across the email addresses you need.
On the People tab, click on Add People then select Bulk import and update.
Select the Update team members option and click Download.
A file will download to your computer. You can open this in a spreadsheet editing software and copy the columns of data containing the names and email addresses of your team members.
Note: the team members' names are not used in the bulk leave request upload process but using the names in conjunction with email addresses may make it easier to identify the correct team members when creating the leave request in your spreadsheet.
Open a copy of the bulk leave request template and paste the employee's email addresses into the email column. You may need to insert extra columns to accommodate the team member names if you are using them.
Now you can populate the other columns of the spreadsheet with the data as explained in the table above.
Before you save the file, don't forget to ensure your dates are in the format YYYY-MM-DD as programs such as Excel often default to DD/MM/YYYY and dates in this format will cause an error during upload.
Upload your leave request file to Deputy
On the People page, click Add People then select Bulk import and update.
You will now be able to upload your CSV by clicking Upload file.
Here you will see the names of columns in your CSV and template file. Most of the columns will be automatically matched to destination fields. Please ensure columns are correctly matched for a successful import.
To help you to correctly match columns, you will see a few data points for columns. To view column data, simply hover over column names. Note that if you added extra columns such as Names then these field will not be matched to a destination field as email addresses are the primary identifier for matching team members during upload.
Once you are happy that the columns match correctly, click Continue.
You may be asked to confirm your selection for fields that must be mapped to a valid option such as the Roster Override data field.
You will need to advise what to do with cells that contain no data for this field. In the example below "Make Shift open" has been selected.
Click Continue.
You will now see a count of how many of your leave request records are Valid and ready to import and how many have errors in the Invalid tab.
Click on the Invalid tab to display all records with errors. You will see the fields coloured red if they have an error. You can use the Filter to review which fields are invalid and you have the choice to correct the errors in the original CSV file and upload or simply fix the errors now. If you have many data errors it may be faster to correct them in the original file and re-load the file, but it is also possible to correct them in Deputy as shown below.
You find out more information about the expected format of the field with the error by hovering your mouse over the column names or you can click on the highlighted field to learn more about errors.
At this point, you can choose:
- to correct all red errors on the page by manually updating all fields to ensure there are no errors
- correct the errors in the original CSV file and start the import process again
- import only valid records (the system will only count valid records and only allow valid records to be imported)
8. Once you are ready, click on Submit and all valid data will be imported.
You will be able to see the progress of the import.
Note: you can close this screen and complete other tasks in Deputy while the data is updated in the background.
On successful import, you will get a Job Complete screen.
It will tell you:
- how many records were successfully imported.
- how many records failed during the import (this might be due to an issue such as you are trying to add a leave request to a team member who does not have that leave entitlement added to their employee profile)
- how many records were invalid for import (these are the rows that were highlighted in red in the previous step)
Click Close.
If any records are rejected, you have the option to correct any fields and import those records again.
If you have no further records to import click on the cross at the top right of the pop up.
and then click Yes, Exit.
Viewing the uploaded leave requests in Deputy
Leave requests uploaded using the bulk import feature will appear in your team member's profile under the Leave tab. These leave requests will be already approved.
All day leave
We can upload a file for a 'Wellness Day' leave request with the field All Day Flag set to TRUE and a start date of 27th Aug and end date of 28th August for two full days of leave:
The team member's Leave tab in their employee profile will show the two days of approved leave on these dates.
Note that one full day of leave is determined by the standard day of leave setting and the shift will default to start at 9am as that is the time set as the operating hours for the location this team member is assigned to.
The leave will show in the schedule as:
Partial day leave
We can upload a file for a 'Wellness Day' leave request with the field All Day Flag set to FALSE and specify a start time of 10am and end time of 2pm on 5th Sept for 4 hours of wellness day leave:
The team member's Leave tab in their employee profile will show the 4 hours of approved leave on these dates.
The partial leave day will show in the schedule as:
View import history
You can view a history of the previous import for leave requests by going into the People page and clicking Add People then selecting Bulk import and update.
1. Click View import history
2. You can see a log of the imports that have occurred.
Note: clicking Download will export all data that was finally imported. This may not necessarily be data that was initially prepared in the original CSV. If any data was changed or errors were corrected during the import process they will be included in the file you download.