You can use a CSV (spreadsheet) file to import survey responses, attendance records, case notes and stories with tagged contacts.

What you’ll cover in this article

You can import CSV spreadsheets into Makerble that contain stories relating to individual contacts.

Read the Considerations & Preliminary Steps before importing stories with tagged contacts and check your spreadsheet is in the correct format.

Why import?

Visualise your results

Distance Travelled Summaries chart - get to it.gif

Preserve your history

Information that’s imported from spreadsheets is compatible with Makerble’s data visualisation tools.
This means you can do things such as:
- Calculate improvement-over-time (Distance Travelled) between baseline and endline survey results which are imported
- Report total attendances and attendance trends per month based on imported attendance data

Imported survey responses, attendance records and case notes are tagged to the individual contacts they relate to
This means you can
- See your entire history of interactions with each contact in one place. Simply open the contact’s profile page to see their previous survey responses, attendance records and case notes on the timeline
- Use what you know about each contact to do things: for example
  - Filter to find contacts who have answered certain survey questions in particular ways
  - Set up alerts or automations based on information in contacts' attendance records or case notes

How it works

Create or Choose a survey on Makerble that contains the same Questions as the columns in your spreadsheet

Export your spreadsheet as a CSV file (this will be in your Save As, Export or Download menu)
Choose a project on Makerble to save the information in
Map the columns to the fields (questions) on Makerble and that’s it

Considerations for Respondent Name

You should not need add a question called Respondent Name to your survey on Makerble. This is because Makerble has an internal field called Name (sometimes displayed as Full Name) which is used to store the name of the respondent. This is covered in Step 5 of the import process.
If you want your survey responses on Makerble to be anonymous and not contain the name of the respondent, that’s fine. Alternatively if you want to use another identifier rather than name, for example Email Address, you can do that instead.
- Before you do the import: ensure there is a field in your spreadsheet that is called Name but in that field, put a random ID number or a respondent ID number. This is because Makerble does need a name to associate each response with, but it doesn’t have to be a person’s name. It can be any string of characters.
- When you reach step 5, select the column that you have designated to store the Name (which in practice might actually contain a Respondent ID Number or a random string of unique characters)

Considerations for spreadsheet column titles

Makerble lets you distinguish between the internal and external names of the questions in your survey
- For quantitative survey questions (Multiple Choice, Tickbox, Numerical) are saved in your account as Progress Trackers.
  - Progress Trackers typically have short punchy titles. E.g. “Confidence Level”
  - But you can change the Ask - i.e. the way that the question is worded when it appears within a survey - so that it sounds more inviting, e.g. “How would you rate your level of confidence?”
In your spreadsheet it doesn’t matter whether your column titles are
- identical to the names of the Progress Trackers
- or identical to the Ask (the way the question is worded in the survey to a respondent)
- or written altogether differently
This is because when you are on the Match Columns tab, you get to confirm which columns should be matched to which fields (Progress Trackers and Fields) on Makerble
There’s an advantage in setting your column titles as identical to the Progress Tracker names, because Makerble will automatically match up those columns to those spreadsheets using character-matching. But you can override those choices as you see fit.
For more information on the distinction between your Progress Trackers and the way they appear to respondents in a survey, refer to this article:Metrics versus Survey Questions: 3 key points to understand the difference between them

Types of answer you can import

Type of Question	Can you import it into Makerble
Multiple Choice (scales) E.g. a Likert Scale question such as To what extent do you agree with the following statement: I wake up feeling energised? with answer choices: Strongly disagree, disagree, no opinion, agree, strongly agree	Yes
Multiple Choice with Other as an additional text box	Yes (ensure you set up your survey to receive Other text box responses)
Multiple Choice with multiple answers per respondent to the question. E.g. a question such as Which of these exercises are you familiar with? Select as many as you like with answer choices: Jogging, Running, Climbing, Swimming, Rowing, Dancing	Yes - but requires a custom script (this is a premium service)
Numerical	Yes
Open Text	Yes
Date Happened (the date that you want the survey response attributed to) For example, if you are uploading baseline survey responses from 3 months ago, you might want to set the Date Happened of those responses as 3 months ago.	Yes (you must add Makerble’s official Date Happened field to your survey)
Date Posted (the real date that the data was uploaded to Makerble)	This is set automatically by Makerble
Date (as in any other Date that is collected) E.g. a question such as What is your birthday? When did you gain employment?	Yes
Time	Yes
Attachment	Yes - but requires a custom script (this is a premium service)
The following fields might appear on your Makerble Survey but they are internal fields and therefore you cannot import data into them from a spreadsheet Add outcomes Privacy Tag additional contacts	No

Summary of the process

Step	Description
Upload spreadsheet	Choose the CSV file you will be importing There are templates available for each project and survey on the left side Choose which project you want to import information into Choose the survey that contains the questions which match to the columns in your CSV file
Preview & Edit spreadsheet	An editable version of your spreadsheet is displayed in Makerble Make any last minute changes to the cells at this point
Match Stories	This option is designed for when you are doing a 2-stage import of activities first and then people’s engagement with those activities second. If you are not doing that, select No at that tab. If you are doing that, refer to the specific guidance for that scenario:Do a 2-stage import to import activities and then import contacts' engagement in those activities
Resolve story rows
Match contacts	This is where you prompt Makerble to automatically match the respondents in your spreadsheet to your existing contacts on Makerble This is because every respondent on Makerble is saved as a contact This is usually done using a Unique Identifier Code but it could alternatively be their name or email address. You want to choose a field which is unique to each contact.
Stories with unidentified contacts	If your respondents don’t yet exist on Makerble, that’s fine. You can select an option at this stage to create new respondent records for them. This is because every respondent on Makerble is saved as a contact
Match authors	If you want to attribute particular coworkers in your project as the authors of these stories or survey responses, you can add a field for Author Email Address to your spreadsheet At this step you can prompt Makerble to automatically allocate each row to the corresponding author However if you don’t want to do this, you can instead let Makerble assign you (as the user doing the import) as the author of each story
Stories with unidentified authors	If you have prompted Makerble to detect authors automatically but there are some rows in the spreadsheet where the author could not be matched, you can match them up manually here
Match columns to fields	This is the main part of the process. It’s where you allocate the columns in your spreadsheet to the questions in your survey Makerble will attempt to match these up for you based on word-matching A consideration at this stage is that you cannot match two columns to the same question
Set rules for matching	For multiple choice questions, you can choose and confirm how the answers in your spreadsheet should match up to the Answer Choices available on Makerble. This is the point at which typos are typically handled. E.g. for a question “What is your country of birth?” someone might have written “Briton” when they meant “Great Britain”. You’ll be able to match up the “Briton” answer from the spreadsheet with the “Great Britain” answer choice available on Makerble.
Confirm import	The table shows you all of the information that will be converted into Makerble Stories. Remember to press Confirm to initiate the import.
Manage Imports	This is the page you arrive on once the import has been initiated. Here you’ll see the status of your import.

Step-by-step import instructions

Go to Create in the top menu
Select Import
You arrive on the New Import page
In the type of record section, select Import Updates about Contacts
You arrive on the Upload tab of the new import about tagged contacts page

Upload (Tab 1)

On the Upload tab
1. Name of Import: give your import a name, e.g. name it after the CSV file and the project
2. Choose the destination: select the single project that this CSV file’s data will be imported to.
3. Assign updates to a particular survey?
  1. If you select No, when you get to the Match Columns To Fields page, you will be able to match each column to
    1. any of the fields used in any of the Survey templates that have been added to the project selected as the destination
    2. any of the Progress Trackers used on the project selected as the destination
  2. If you select Yes, you can specify which Survey template to use to match the CSV columns to Makerble Fields
4. Attach the file: select the CSV file
5. Press Next

Preview & Edit Spreadsheet (Tab 2)

You arrive on the Preview & Edit Spreadsheet tab
1. If you need to make edits to the CSV file, you can do that here although it is better to make edits directly in the CSV file before you upload it
2. Scroll to the bottom and press Next

Match Stories (Tab 3)

You reach the Match Stories tab
In most scenarios you will select No
Only select Yes if you are importing stories that need to be merged with existing stories on Makerble, e.g. as part of a 2-stage import process.
1. If you select Yes, refer to the guidance on this article to ensure you’ve follow the preliminary stage correctly as this part that you are currently on will be Stage 2 of the 2-stage import process: Do a 2-stage import to import activities and then import contacts' engagement in those activities

Resolve Story Rows (Tab 4)

If you are importing completely new stories into Makerble (i.e. you are not editing existing stories that exist on Makerble), leave the tickboxes on this page ticked, scroll to the bottom and click Next
However if this is part of your 2-stage import process, you can manually choose whether or not to merge rows with existing stories.
1. See this article for more detail: Do a 2-stage import to import activities and then import contacts' engagement in those activities

Match Contacts (Tab 5)

You arrive on the Match Contacts tab.
If you need to tag existing contacts on Makerble in your stories, follow the steps in the next article.
If you do not need to tag existing Makerble contacts in your imported stories, simply click Next
This allows you to use a Unique Identifier (e.g. a code or even a contact’s name) to match the contacts referenced in your spreadsheet to the Contact records that exist on Makerble.
1. In the left dropdown list, select the spreadsheet column that contains the Unique Identifier
2. In the right dropdown list, select the Contact field on Makerble that contains the Unique Identifier
3. Press Find Matching Contacts
4. A table appears showing you the number of
  1. Spreadsheet rows in which a matching contact was identified
  2. Contacts on Makerble who have been identified
5. Press Next

Stories with Unidentified Contacts (Tab 6)

You arrive on the Stories With Unidentified Contacts tab
1. This displays spreadsheet rows in which Makerble was unable to identify a Contact who exists on the platform
2. On the far right of the table are options for the Resolving Action
  1. Select Skip if you want Makerble to not import the story in this row
  2. Select Assign To An Existing Contact if you want to manually select one of your Contacts to whom this story should be tagged
  3. Select Create if you want Makerble to create a new Contact record for the contact referenced in this story. If you select this option, ensure that you have used the dropdown list at the top of the table to choose which spreadsheet column should be used to give a name to the newly created Contact
    1. As a shortcut: select Apply to all: Create
3. Press Next

Match Authors (Tab 7)

If your spreadsheet contains a column that contains either the Username or the Email address of the Makerble user whom you want to be considered as the author of each story, follow the steps to identify the authors
However if you do not have a column to indicate who the author of each story is, simply press Next

Stories With Unidentified Authors (Tab 8)

This tab prompts you to choose who the author of each story will be
If you are importing historical data and the author of the story is not important, select Apply to all: Set importer as user
Press Next

Match Columns to Fields (Tab 9)

You arrive on the Match Columns to Fields tab
1. The left column contains a list of the Spreadsheet Columns in your CSV file
2. The right column contains a dropdown list containing
  1. Fields in the specific Survey template you selected on the Upload Spreadsheet tab OR if you selected “No” on the Assign updates to a particular survey; the dropdown list will display all the Fields used in all the Survey templates that have been added to the project
  2. Progress Trackers from the Survey template you selected on the Upload Spreadsheet tab OR if you selected “No” on the Assign updates to a particular survey; the dropdown list will display all the Progress Trackers that have been added to the project
  3. Some Makerble system fields are also included such as
    1. Date the activity happened: match this to a Date field to back-date when an update was created
    2. What’s been happening…” this is the generic Text field that appears in an update. Match this field to the notes column in the spreadsheet
3. Each field or Progress Tracker on Makerble (right column) can only be assigned to one Spreadsheet Column as if they were assigned to multiple columns, it could cause conflicts.

Set Rules for Matching (Tab 10)

You arrive on the Set Rules for Matching tab
1. If any of the Progress Trackers selected in the Match Columns To Fields tab are multiple choice fields, they will appear on this page.
2. For each Multiple Choice Tracker it will display the different Answer Choice options that were detected in the CSV file
3. Match each of the Answer Choices detected in the CSV file to the Answer Choice within that Multiple Choice Tracker. This is used when for example, the Multiple Choice Tracker contains the options Yes and No but in the CSV file it has “Yes”, “No”, “Yeah”, “Not at all”, etc. In this case, you would match “Yes” and “Yeah” from the Spreadsheet Columns to “Yes” on Makerble; and match “No” and “Not at all” from the Spreadsheet Columns to “No” on Makerble
4. You must ensure that all the Answer Choices detected in the spreadsheet are matched to an Answer Choice on Makerble

Confirm Import (Tab 11)

You arrive on the Confirm Import tab
Scroll to the bottom and press Next
The import will begin and you will be redirected to the Manage Imports page

Import survey responses, attendance records, case notes and stories with tagged contacts using a CSV file