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📩 Importing Your Users

How to use the Bulk import tool as well as how to create import templates and send invites

Updated over 8 months ago

Introduction

Our Bulk import tool allows you to import up to 5,000 users at once. This article will walk you through:

💹 Managing imports

All user imports are managed from the Imports page in Admin. To access this section Open Blink Admin, click on Users in the left-hand navigation, and then click on the Bulk Update button at the top of the Users table.

✏️ Setting up your import template

  1. After the Bulk Update tab, you will be able to view all Imports that were started, failed, and completed. Click on Start Import to get access to the Import Template that will be used for Importing users.

  2. There will be three options to choose from, Update Users, Import New Users, and Skip to Upload. To get your Import template select the second option - Import New Users.

  3. Select which Teams you would like to add to your Import. The Default team will already be included in the list of teams, you just need to add the rest of Teams. These will appear as separate columns in the template file which you can use to import users to specific teams.

  4. After your Teams have been added you can click next and your Import file will be ready to download.


💻 Preparing your import template

Open your import template in an editor of your choice.

  • Add user information

  • The more information you add now the easier it will be for your users to register

  • Add users to teams

  • If you selected teams to add to your template from step 2 you should see these teams as columns in the template file

  • Add an X in that column to add a user to that team

In the import template, each user row MUST contain one or more of the following:

  • Email Address

  • Phone Number

  • Job Title

  • First Name or Last Name

  • First Day (YYYY-MM-DD)

  • Last Day (YYYY-MM-DD)

Column

Required

Description

Email Address

Yes/Optional

The user's email address. This is optional if you provide a telephone number for the respective user. If you provide both the first name and the surname of the user, the email address is no longer necessary to upload the file.

Telephone Number

Yes/Optional

The user's telephone number. This is optional if you provide an email address for the respective user. If you provide both the first name and the surname of the user, the telephone number is no longer necessary to upload the file.

First Name

Yes/Optional

The user's first name. This is optional if you provide a telephone number or an email address of the respective user.

Last Name

Yes/Optional

The user's last name. This is optional if you provide a telephone number or an email address of the respective user.

Job Title

Yes/Optional

The user's job title within the company. This is optional if you provide a telephone number or an email address or both first name and second name of the user.

First Day

Optional

The user's first day at the company. This is optional but is expected to be filled out in the style YYYY-MM-DD and the data format must be TEXT. Check out this article for more information.

Last Day

Optional

The user's last day at the company. This is optional but is expected to be filled out in the style YYYY-MM-DD and the data format must be TEXT. Check out this article for more information.

Department

Optional

The user's department name. This is optional if you provide a telephone number or an email address or both first name and second name of the user.

Employee ID

Optional

The user's ID number. This is optional if you provide a telephone number or an email address or both first name and second name of the user.

Company Name

Optional

The user's company name. This is optional if you provide a telephone number or an email address or both first name and second name of the user.

Team

Optional

This is a team within the org you wish the user to belong to. This is optional. You chose these during the download of the import template. To select the team, you place an X in the corresponding team's field. If you do not select a team, the users will automatically be added to the default team during registration.


❗ Some columns need extra attention. Review your fields as described below:

📬 Email Address

The email address should be unique to the user. If they do not have an email with your organisation's domain, this is fine, as you're inviting them through the Admin Portal we will automatically add them to your organisation.

☎️ Telephone Number

  • Each number must be a mobile number, no landlines allowed

  • Each number must be written in the international format (+44, +41, +49)

  • Check if each number is of the same length, shorter or longer numbers often indicate that they're invalid


⬆️ Uploading your template and importing users

  1. Head back to the Import page (where you received the downloadable import page), click Next.

  2. Add an Import Name but make sure this is specific, like the date and who you are importing to Blink for example.

  3. Upload the newly saved import template that you have filled out with all of your user information.

  4. Press Upload. Imports can take up to 5 minutes, but it does depend on the amount of users.

  5. Once this has completed you will receive an Import complete message to confirm that it is done. You will also be able to see your import at the starting page after you click Bulk Update with Success written next to it, if it was successful.


🤷 What to do once your import is complete

Providing there are no errors in the import template you will receive an email from us letting you know that all of your users have been imported.

In order to get everyone signed up you will need to either Send Invitations or Download Starter Packs, or you can click Skip, and do this at a later date/time.

📩 Invite users

You can trigger invites to your imported users from the Admin Panel

  1. Head back to the imports page

  2. Locate the import and click on Send invitations

💡 Helpful Hint 💡

You can send invites to one team at a time when you do a bulk import.

🔰 Downloading personalized Starter Packs:

You can download personalized invitations for everyone in the import or download them individually from each user's profile.

  1. Head back to the imports page

  2. Click on the button

  3. Click on Download Starter Packs from the menu that appears

⚠️ Errors with your import template

If there are any errors with the import template the import will fail and none of your users will be imported to Blink. You will be shown a list of errors and all you need to do is fix those errors and then re-upload the full import template again.

  1. Head back to the import page

  2. Click on the import that has failed

  3. From here you can see each error, line by line

  4. Open your import template and correct the errors

  5. Re-upload your file and press Next

  6. We will import your users again and email you to let you know if it has worked - if it doesn't work you will need to repeat these steps

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