Import new Courses in bulk

Steps to import Courses in bulk

1 Create and format your Import File
2 Create an Import Profile
3 Run a sample Import Job
4 Run your Import

Related Help Guide Pages

Learn how to add hundreds of Courses to your platform at once from a spreadsheet, using your in-built platform import tool!

When you are faced with the task of scheduling numerous Courses to have them ready to take bookings as quickly as possible, your platform’s Course Import tool is your new best friend!

Using your spreadsheet of Course information, the import tool can create hundreds of Courses at once to dramatically speed up your scheduling process and lower the chance of human error.

This guide will show you how to effortlessly import courses, ensuring a smoother and error-free journey when preparing your Courses.

Follow this page to learn the steps to import Courses.

Please note

The Import tool is available to Super Administrators, if you are not able to access the Import options please speak to a member of the accessplanit team.

Create and format your Import File

This step will show you how to create a .csv file that contains all of the information needed for your Course import

To create and format your Import File, you will follow these steps:

Download the Course Import Template File (included in this guide)
Format the Course Import Template File
Populate the Course Import Template File
Save as a .csv file

Download the Course Import Template File

In this step you will download our template file for Course Imports.

There are two files to download to support your import, there is a reference spreadsheet which you can look at to understand the import options, and there is an import template which you will edit and fill with your import data.

Please download our reference Import Profile here to view all of the options for your import file:
1. All mandatory fields are shown in Red
2. All optional fields are shown in Grey
3. This file is a reference file only
Please download our blank Import Template here (this is the file you will add your import data into):

Format the Course Import Template File

This step will take you setting up your import file with the columns that you want to import data for, ready for populating it with data!

You will remove the columns you don’t need, and you can add additional columns if you want to import any custom field data.

Open the ‘Course Import Template’ file (download available above), this will open an Excel file which will only contain column headings, these will be listed in the first row
This is the file that you will be working from, amending, and adding data to
Open the ‘EXAMPLE Course Import Template’ file (download available above), this will open an Excel file with further information and example data for each available import column
This file is a useful reference, to understand what data is required in each column
Within the 'Course Import Template’ file, remove any columns that you do not plan to import data to, you can remove the following:
1. CourseID or CourseName (you cannot remove both)
2. Sessional (if none of your Courses to import are Sessional)
3. SessionalCostType (if none of your Courses to import are Sessional)
4. CompanyID
5. ExternalID
6. OverrideAlias
7. Duration
8. DurationType
9. Cost
10. CostType
11. Private
12. AdvertiseStartDate
13. AdvertiseEndDate
14. VenueID
15. VenueLabel
16. TrainerLabel
17. Places
18. MinimumPlaces
19. WaitingList
20. CompanyExclusivity
21. CompanyGroupsExclusivity
22. DeliveryMethodID
23. Description
24. JoiningInstructionsText
25. NominalCode
If you plan to import any data into your Course Custom Fields for the Courses you will be importing, add additional columns into your 'Course Import Template’ file for these
Make sure that you have the following mandatory columns included within your 'Course Import Template’ file
1. CourseID or CourseName (you can include both)
2. CCLevel
3. StartDate
4. EndDate
5. Status
6. Sessional (if any of your Courses to import are Sessional)
7. SessionalCostType (if any of your Courses to import are Sessional)
Progress to the next step, to fill your import file in with your Course data

Populate the Course Import Template File

This step will take you populating your import file with your Course data, ready for importing it into your platform!

Using the 'EXAMPLE Course Import Template’ file as a reference, add in your Course data into your 'Course Import Template’ file
The below table outlines each column that you can include in your import file:

Column	Description	Format	Rules
CourseID	The Course Template ID This can be found by adding the ‘Course Template ID’ column into your Course Templates DataGrid	Text	This must match to an existing Course Template ID in your platform If you haven't created your Course Template, please refer to our Helpguide pages here: Create a New Class Course Template Create a new Webinar Course Template
CourseName	The Course Template Label This can be found by viewing the ‘Label’ column into your Course Templates DataGrid	Text	This must match to an existing Course Template Label in your platform
CCLevel	This should always be '4'	Number
StartDate	The date and time that your Course will be starting	Date Time	The date should follow the date format used in your platform Make sure that the start time is also included
EndDate	The date and time that your Course will be ending	Date Time	The date should follow the date format used in your platform Make sure that the end time is also included
Status	This is the status of the Course i.e. ‘Available’ and ‘OnHold’	Text	This must be formatted exactly as they appear in your platform (with capitalised first letters).
Sessional	Whether the Course is Sessional or not	Y or N	Sessional Courses = Y Non-sessional Courses= N
SessionalCostType	If your course is sessional, it must have a Sessional Cost Type assigned	Number	Course cost plus sessions = 8 Course cost plus optional sessions = 4 Course cost = 2 Sum of sessions = 1
CompanyID	The ID of the Training Provider that is offering this Course This can be found by viewing the ‘Account ID’ column into your Accounts DataGrid	Text
ExternalID	Used to store the ID for this course event from another software/system	Text
OverrideAlias	An override label for this Course event, this will be used instead of the Course Template Label	Text
Duration	The Course Template's duration will be used if you leave this empty Enter the duration amount, this will work in conjunction with the next column DurationType to calculate define the length of the Course	Number
DurationType	The Course Template's duration type will be used if you leave this empty Enter the type of duration you want the course to have	Text	This must be one of the following: Day Hour Minute
Cost	The Course Template's cost will be used if you leave this empty Enter the cost amount, this will work in conjunction with the next column the CostType to calculate the cost of the course	Number	Do not include a currency symbol, the currency will automatically be recognised from the Training Provider of the Course
CostType	The Course Template's cost type will be used if you leave this empty Enter the type of cost you want the course to have, for a cost per	Number	Per Delegate =1 Per Session =2 Per Hour =4 Per Day =8 Per Delegate Day =16
Private	If the Course should be advertised or kept as hidden/private	1 or 0	To keep the Course private = 1 To advertise the Course = 0
AdvertiseStartDate	The date the Course can be advertised from	Date Time	The date should follow the date format used in your platform
AdvertiseEndDate	The date the Course can be advertised until	Date Time	The date should follow the date format used in your platform
VenueID	The ID of the Venue where the Course will take place This can be found by viewing the ‘Mapped ID’ column in your Resources DataGrid	Text	This must match to an existing Venue in your platform If you haven't created your Venues, please refer to our Helpguide pages here: Trainers and Venues (Resources) - Getting Startedarchived
VenueLabel	The Label of the Venue where the Course will take place. You do not need to include this if you have included the Venue ID in your import file.	Text	This must match to an existing Venue in your platform
TrainerLabel	The label of the Trainer Resource that should be assigned to this Course	Text	This must match to an existing Trainer in your platform If you haven't created your Trainers, please refer to our Helpguide pages here:
Places	The maximum number of places available on this Course	Number	This must be higher than the ‘MinimumPlaces’ number
MinimumPlaces	The maximum number of places that should be booked for this Course to run	Number	This must be lower than the ‘Places’ number
WaitingList	Whether waiting list bookings will be accepted on your Course	1 or 0	Enabled = 1 Disabled = 0
CompanyExclusivity	If your Course should only be available/exclusive to an Account, provide the Account ID here	Text	This must match to an existing Account in your platform
CompanyGroupsExclusivity	If your Course should only be available/exclusive to an Account Group, provide the Account Group ID here	Text	This must match to an existing Account Group in your platform
DeliveryMethodID	The Course Template's Delivery Method will be used if you leave this empty	Number	Please ask a member of the accessplanit team for the IDs of your platform’s delivery methods, if no changes have been made to the defaults they will be: In House = 1 Public = 2
Description	This text will be stored as the Course's 'Additional Information' which can be included in Workflow emails to Delegates	Text
JoiningInstructionsText	This text will be stored as the Course's 'Joining Instructions' which is available in the Learner Portal and can be included in Workflow emails to Delegates	Text
NominalCode	This is the ID of the financial nominal code for this Course		The ID of the Nominal Code is required, not the Nominal Code itself, please ask a member of the accessplanit team for the IDs of your platform’s Nominal Codes

If your organisation/business operates using Languages where the following special characters are present - Č, Š, Ž and Ć - and you wish to use the importer to upload content containing these characters to the platform - you will need to contact the accessplanit Support Team.

Save as a .csv file

This step will take you through saving your Course Import file into the file format needed for the import tool

Once you have all the information you require within your import file, you can then save it as a .csv file
Within Excel, click the ‘File’ option in the top left hand corner
Click ‘Save as’
Using the drop down box under the file name, select CSV (comma delimited) (*.csv) and name your file (for example ‘Summer Course Dates Import’)
Click the ‘Save' button to complete the Save

Your Import file has now been saved, ready for importing.

Create an Import Profile

This step will run through how to create an Import Profile in your accessplanit platform, to use when importing Courses.

You will be able to reuse this profile each time you import Courses using the same file structure (i.e. the same columns of data are included).

Open the ‘Administration’ menu from the Profile options at the top-right of your platform
Scroll down the page until you find the ‘Import Profiles’ menu option
The menu is in alphabetical order
Click on the ‘Import Profiles’ option to be taken to the Import Profiles page
Click the ‘New Profile’ button at the top right corner of the page to create a new Import Profile
Provide a ‘Profile name’ for your Import Profile
We advise providing your Profile with a unique name so that's its easily identifiable
Select ‘Course Date’ as your import ‘Destination’, this lets the Platform know that you will be importing Course information
The next step is to upload the .csv file that you created and saved earlier, click the selecting the ‘Choose file’ button and selecting the file from your saved location
Leave the ‘Header Label Row’ set to '1', this tells your platform that the column headings of your import are in the first row
Click the ‘Next ->’ option at the top right of your page to proceed to the column mapping step for your Import Profile
In the column mappings step you will match each column in your import file (Source column) to a Course setting in your accessplanit platform (Destination column), this is where you define where the information in your import file will be imported to and displayed in your platform, much of this will be pre-populated for you!
If you see ‘IGNORE' within the 'Destination Column’, you will need to select the correct column from the drop down option
Leaving it as IGNORE will mean that the Platform will ignore this column in the file when running the Import
When running an Import, your platform needs to know which column(s) can be used to uniquely identify each row, this is important as the importer supports both creating Courses and updating Courses, if each row is not uniquely identified by its key columns there is a risk that the existing Courses will overwritten with the details of new Courses are required. Use the ‘Key column' field to select 'Yes’ for your unique identifiers.

Key Columns for Courses

Key Column(s) are used to identify Courses, so that your platform to differentiate between one Course and another Course.

For example, if you have two Courses with the name ‘First Aid at Work’ at are both starting at 9am on 15th July, your platform needs to know the difference between the two, in this case you could set your key columns to Course ID and Start Date, because this combination will be different on the two Courses.

If there isn’t an existing column or combination of columns that can be used to uniquely identify your Courses from one another, a common way to manage this issue is to generate a unique code for each Course and record this as the ‘External ID’, then use ‘External ID’ as the Key Column for your import.

Click the ‘Finish’ button at the top right of your page to complete your Import Profile
Click the ‘OK’ button to return to the ‘Import Profiles’ page

Your Import Profile has now been created

Please note

The columns within your Import Profile MUST match the columns within your .csv file exactly otherwise your Import will not work.

Run a sample Import Job

Before you run your full import into the platform, we recommend that you first run a test to check that your Import Profile has been set up correctly.

This involves only importing a small sample of Courses and checking that they have imported correctly.

To run a test Import Job, you will follow these steps:

Create a sample import file
Run an Import Job
Check the Courses

Create a sample import file

This step will show you how to import your sample Courses using your Import Profile

Open the .csv file that you created for your import earlier and remove data so that you only have 3-4 lines of data remaining in the file
Go to ‘File’ in the top left hand corner
Click ‘Save As’ to save this as a new import file
Do not click ‘Save’ as this will overwrite your import file
Rename this version of your import file so that you know if it is the test import file, for example 'Summer Course Import - Test File', and make sure that the format is still CSV (Comma Delimited) (*.csv)
Click the ‘Save’ button to create your Test import file

You are now ready to run your test import

Run an Import Job

This step will show you how to import your sample Courses using your Import Profile

Click ‘Profile’ and then ‘Administration’ in the top right corner of the Platform
Scroll down the menu and click ‘Import Jobs’, the menu is in alphabetical order
Click on the ‘Import Jobs’ option to be taken to the Import Jobs page
Click ‘New job’ in the top right hand corner
Select your Import Profile from the ‘Profile’ drop down menu
From the File option, click on the ‘Choose File’ button and upload the Test file that you created in the previous step
The ‘Initial State’ option is where you can choose to Import now, or put the Import on Hold if you would like to set the import off to run later
Click the ‘Upload’ button to start the Import Job
Once you have uploaded your file to start the Import Job, your page will show the Import job being processed
a. ID - This is the ID number of the Import Job
b. Profile - This is the name of the Profile used for the Import
c. Filename - This is the name of the Import file uploaded
d. Status - This is the status of the Import Job, it will begin as ‘Queued’ but will change to ‘Completed’ once the Import has finished
e. Due - This is when the Import is due to run
f. Started - This will be blank to begin with, once the Import Job has started, the Start date and time will populate.
g. Completed - This will be blank and will populate once the Import has completed
h. Row Count - This shows how many rows are to be imported
i. Processed - This will show the number of rows that have been imported and will change as the Import runs.
Your Import will have the status of ‘Completed’, the Completed time and date will be populated and the Processed' column number will match the same number as the ‘Row Count' column
Once your import is complete, click the ‘Show Errors' button to see if there were any issues with the import

Move on to the next step to check whether your Import Profile has worked or not.

Check the Courses

This step will talk you through the process of checking your new Courses have imported correctly

Depending on what format of Courses were imported, open the ‘Class’ or ‘Web’ Courses DataGrid from your main navigation menu on the left
This will open the Course DataGrid with a list of all Courses Available
Add an additional column into your DataGrid using the ‘Change Columns’ button in the top right hand side of the DataGrid
Use the ‘+' button to add the column ‘Date Created’, sort this ‘Descending’ and click on the 'Apply’ button, this will add this column to your Courses DataGrid and show the most recently created Courses at the top
One Course at a time, right-click on each imported Course and select ‘Edit’ from the context menu options
Check that the details of the Course have been imported as expected, for example:
1. The start and end date/time are correct
2. The correct Training Provider has been assigned
3. The Course Status is correct
4. Sessional information has been imported correctly
5. + any other information you have imported
  
  If you are satisfied that all the sample Courses have been imported correctly, your testing is now complete

Run your Import

Once you have run your test import and you are happy that everything imported correctly, you are ready to import your Courses!

Go back to the original .csv file that you created earlier within Excel and open the file with all your data showing and check you are happy with the file
Within your accessplanit platform, open the ‘Administration’ menu from the Profile options at the top-right of your platform
Scroll down the menu and click ‘Import Jobs’, the menu is in alphabetical order
Click on the ‘Import Jobs’ option to be taken to the Import Jobs page
Click ‘New job’ in the top right hand corner

Select your Profile from the drop down menu. This is the name of the Profile created in the step above. In this case it is ‘Course Date - New Course Dates’

Select the ‘File’ you wish to upload, this is the original import file you created and saved earlier

The ‘Initial State’ option is where you can choose to Import now, or put the Import on Hold if needed
Click the ‘Upload’ button to start your Import Jobs
Once you have uploaded your Import Job, it will show the Import Job uploading
a. ID - This is the ID number of the Import Job
b. Profile - This is the name of the Profile used for the Import
c. Filename - This is the name of the Import file uploaded
d. Status - This is the status of the Import Job, it will begin as ‘Queued’ but will change to ‘Completed’ once the Import has finished
e. Due - This is when the Import is due to run
f. Started - This will be blank to begin with, once the Import Job has started, the Start date and time will populate.
g. Completed - This will be blank and will populate once the Import has completed
h. Row Count - This shows how many rows are to be imported
i. Processed - This will show the number of rows that have been imported and will change as the Import runs.
Your Import will have the status of ‘Completed’, the Completed time and date will be populated and the Processed' column number will match the same number as the ‘Row Count' column

Screenshot 2024-01-11 092913-20240111-093001.jpg

There is a section at the end of the Import named ‘Actions’. Here you will find the option to ‘Show Errors’, ‘Restart’, ‘Stop’ and ‘Cancel’ your Import
You can use the ‘Show Errors’ button to see if anything has stopped your Import from working correctly, if the Import Errors page is blank, this means the data in your import file hasn’t failed any validation checks

Please note

You can download the errors file to view more information about any failures from the ‘Import Errors’ page

If you do not understand what any of the errors mean, please reach out to the support team and they will be able to provide further guidance and help you with your import

Example of an Import with no errors:

Example of an Import with Errors:

The Import Errors page shows you which rows have failed

The ‘Stop’ and ‘Restart' buttons can be used while your Import Job is processing, to pause and restart your import, please note that it can take a few seconds for these to be actioned after you have clicked them
We do not recommend using the 'Delete’ button for your Import Jobs unless absolutely necessary