Do a 2-stage import to import activities and then import contacts' engagement in those activities

Why do a 2-stage import?

• Makerble does not give you the option to import Events directly from a CSV file (although you can achieve this with a customised integration)

• If you have information in spreadsheets that relates to events you’ve run previously and people’s attendance at those events you need to import that information in two stages

  • Stage 1: import stories that contain information about the events. (Each event must have a Unique Identifier Code)

  • Stage 2: import stories that contain information about people’s attendance at those events. (The row for each person’s attendance must contain the same Unique Identifier Code that corresponds to the event)

How it works - an Example

Stage 1: import stories that contain information about the events.

Prepare the spreadsheet

• For this example we have 3 different activities that we want to import attendance for.

• The activities are:

  • Alice&Ben'sWedding

  • Joseph'sBirthdayParty

  • Sarah'sEngagementParty

• The first spreadsheet needs to be the Activities spreadsheet and it will look a bit like this

  

• There are columns for

  • Name of the Event: this is going to be used as the Event Identifier because in this example, each event name is unique.

    • But if the names of events were not unique, you would need an additional column called Event Unique ID

  • Special events held

  • Date

  • Author

  • Guest attendances: given that the Guest Attendances will be coming from a different spreadsheet, we will not import this column

Do the Stage 1 import

• Import the CSV file using the Import Manual Headcount option: Import stories with anonymous progress via CSV

• On the Match Columns tab, the Guest attendances column will be skipped, given that the Guest Attendances will be coming from a different spreadsheet

At the end of Stage 1

• The system will have created 3 stories.

• There will be a story for each row in the spreadsheet, i.e. a story for each event

Stage 2: import stories that contain information about people’s attendance at those events.

Prepare the spreadsheet

• The purpose of Stage 2 is to edit each story that was created in Stage 1 and within that story, insert the details of the attendees

• In order to do this, you need to prompt Makerble to identify which stories need to be edited

• This is why the spreadsheet for Stage 2 looks like the one below - it is crucial that it has the Name of the Event column with the same unique name of each event that was in the previous spreadsheet. Because Makerble will use character-matching to identify which story needs to be edited

  

Do the Stage 2 import

• At the Match Stories tab you will select Yes

• You will be prompted to select the spreadsheet column that contains the Unique Identifier that will be used to identify which story needs to be edited for each row.

• For detailed instructions on this part of the import, refer to Import survey responses, attendance records, case notes and stories with tagged contacts using a CSV file

At the end of Stage 2

• You will still have 3 stories at the end of Stage 2

• But now each of those stories will have been edited to contain the attendance information of your guests