Managers can use this tool as an employee importer or to update people's information in bulk from a spreadsheet.
- Before you begin
- What data fields can be imported?
- How do I bulk import or bulk update team member data?
- Export team member details
- 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 for the locations that they manage.
This tool will only export the data of team member who are active in the Deputy system. No archived team member data will be exported. This is because bulk updates of archived team member information are not recommended. If you need to export archived team member data for recording or historical archiving purposes please instead use this Deputy export tool.
You will also need a spreadsheet prepared with your data in it and saved as a CSV file. You can either:
- create the spreadsheet dataset you need with our CSV sample template or
- export your existing Deputy data as a CSV file and edit or add to that data in the spreadsheet before re-importing it back into Deputy.
- For fields like Payroll ID, Excel may cut off any leading zeros on the CSV file, make sure to review the format before proceeding.
- When adding new members who are not already on Deputy. Please do not populate the Deputy ID field. This is a unique identifier generated by Deputy.
What data fields can be imported?
Please find below a list of fields and respective validations for each data set you can bulk import:
Employee
| Field | Example | Mandatory | Validations |
| First Name | "Jackson" | Yes | |
| Last Name | "Johnson" | Yes | |
| Preferred Name (Display Name) | "Jack" | No | |
| Mobile | "0401000000" | No |
Must be in the format shown in example Managers can only bulk import phone numbers for team members that have not joined Deputy yet - see note |
| "jackjohnson@email.com" | Yes |
Unique Managers can not use this field to bulk update email addresses for team members who have already joined Deputy - see note. |
|
| Main Location | "Location" | Yes (either location name or location code) | Valid Deputy location for your business |
| Location Code | "LOC" | Yes (either location name or location code) | Valid Deputy location for your business |
| DOB | "1999-09-09" | No | Must be in format shown in example |
| Gender | "Male" | No | If you leave this column blank you may be asked to assign a default answer such as "Prefer not to say" during the import process. |
| Address | "103 Home" | No | |
| City | "Sydney" | No | |
| Post Code | "2000" | No | |
| State | "NSW" | No | Valid State |
| Country | "Australia" | No | Valid Country |
| Emergency Contact Name | "Jill" | No | |
| Emergency Contact Phone | "Jackson" | No | |
| User Name | "jjackson" | No | Unique |
| Termination Date | "2022-09-09" | No | Must be in format shown in example |
| Send Invite (Y/N) | "Y" | No | Default "N" |
| Additional locations | "Location 2, Location 3" | No | Valid Deputy location for your business |
| Role | "Employee"/"Supervisor"/"Location Manager"/"System Administrator" | No | Valid role for your business |
| Stress Profile | "24/7" | No | Valid stress profile for your business |
| Payroll ID | "1234" | No | |
| Hired Date | "2022-08-08" | No | Must be in format shown in example |
| Library award | "[MA000009] HIGA - Full Time - 1-October-2022" | No | Must match the name of a valid employment term in your account (For Premium accounts, the name of a valid Deputy pay rate, or for Enterprise, the name of a custom employment term created for you. |
| Base rate | "20" | No | A valid number (to 4 decimal places) |
Note for Enterprise accounts only:
You may notice that the Employee template you download also features your Enterprise custom fields if any are present. These fields may be updated in the same way as updating data in the default fields in your file.
Note for bulk updating team member information:
As well as using the spreadsheet template to bulk import new team members' information you may also use it to bulk update team members' information.
The exceptions to this bulk update functionality are the following two fields:
- mobile number
Both of these fields can not be bulk updated if the team member has already joined Deputy.
The reason for this is managers are not allowed to update a team member's mobile phone number or email address once the team member has already accepted their invitation to Deputy whether it's individually through their employee profile or in bulk action.
For security purposes, all Deputy users, regardless of access level must update their own phone or email address and cannot update the phone number or email address of other users who have already joined Deputy.
How do I bulk import or bulk update team member data?
On the People page, click Add People then select Bulk import and update.
Add new team members
If you would like to add new team members in bulk, click on Add team members then enter your team member details in the template spreadsheet and click Continue to upload.
Update existing team members
If you would like to update existing team member details in bulk then click on Update team members then download your existing team member details as a CSV.
Make the required amendments in the spreadsheet on your computer and save the file. When you are ready to upload the amended data to Deputy you can click Continue to upload.
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.
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 valid option such as Gender. You will need to advise what to do with cells that contain no data for this field. In the example below "Prefer not to say" has been selected.
You will now see a count of how many of your 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.
In the examples below, the date of birth is in the wrong date format and a stress profile has been entered in the cell that does not exist in the account.
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)
Once you have corrected all errors in your data 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 success screen. Click Close.
If any records are rejected, you have the option to review those records, 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.
Export existing team member details to a spreadsheet
1. On the People page, click Add People then select Bulk import and update.
2. Click on Update team members then Download.
The CSV file will be downloaded to your computer.
View import history
You can view a history of the previous import for team member details 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.