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To import employees into the system, fill out a template with information about your company's employees. Filling in the template for importing employees will help you save time and avoid mistakes when entering data manually.
We recommend including as much information as possible about your employees, including their managers, in the template to properly reflect the company's organizational structure.
💡 You can download the template file here in both .csv and .xlsx formats.
Note that this sample is for reference only. Remember to download and modify the file locally.
System fields and how to fill them in
Import in the PeopleForce system supports two file types - .csv and .xlsx. Before uploading a table to the system, fill in all the fields correctly. You can find an example of how to fill in the fields below:
Mandatory fields are highlighted in red and bold:
Field Name | Description | Data Format | Example |
employee_id | Employee ID. | Text or Number | id2 |
first_name | Employee first name | Text | John |
middle_name | Employee middle name | Text | Alexander |
last_name | Employee last name | Text | Doe |
Work email address | Text (Email format) | ||
personal_email | Personal email address | Text (Email format) | |
date_of_birth | Employee's date of birth | Date (Must correspond with the date format in the company settings) | 1990-01-01 |
gender | Employee's gender | Text | Male |
hired_on | Employee's hiring date | Date (Must correspond with the date format in the company settings) | 2023-12-01 |
phone_number | Work phone number | Text (Phone number format) | +1 (555) 555-5555 |
mobile_number | Personal phone number | Text (Phone number format) | +1 (123) 456-7890 |
employment_type | Type of employment | Text | Full-time |
position | Job title of the employee | Text | Software Engineer |
department | Department the employee belongs to | Text | Development |
division | Division the employee belongs to | Text | Europe |
location | Employee's work location | Text | Berlin |
facebook_url | Employee's Facebook profile URL | URL | |
linkedin_url | Employee's LinkedIn profile URL | URL | |
twitter_username | Employee's Twitter username | Text | @JohnADoe |
skype_username | Employee's Skype username | Text | @JohnADoe |
slack_username | Employee's Slack username | Text | @JohnADoe |
skills | Comma-separated list of employee's skills | Text | Java, Python, HTML |
reporting_to_employee_id | The ID of this employee's direct manager. | Text or Number | id1 |
salary_amount | Employee's salary | Number | 10000 |
salary_currency_code | Currency code for salary | Text | USD |
salary_effective_on | Date the salary goes into effect | Date (Must correspond with the date format in the company settings) | 2024-06-01 |
salary_frequency | How often the employee is paid | Text. It can be one of the following values:
| month |
access | System access permission. | Number. It can be one of the following values:
| 1 |
ldap_username | Username for LDAP authentification. It is used only if the LDAP is activated. For more information about different ways to access the system, see Types of authentication. | Text | jadoe |
probation ends on
| Date when the employee's probation period ends | Date (Must correspond with the date format in the company settings) | 2024-07-29 |
💡 Optional fields can be left blank or removed from the template.
💡 When importing employees, ensure that the imported data has the correct format for date, phone number (starting with a +), full name, and email address. All fields get validated by the system.
The current date format can be found in Settings -> General. When you make an import, the imported dates have to correspond to the current date format in your account.
Custom fields
Custom fields are additional fields in employee cards that you can create in the system to store certain information about an employee. Examples of custom fields in an employee profile can include:
Education
Work experience
Address
Post code
Social Security Number
Marital status
Hobby
To create new employee fields, specific to your company, go to Settings -> PeopleHR -> Employee fields.
After adding custom fields in the settings, transfer their names to the import template. The system will automatically pull the data from these fields in the template into the custom fields in the system.
It is important to mention that when a spreadsheet is saved, you must select the comma as the delimiter.
Importing data into the system
To import employees into the system, go to Settings -> General -> Import.
If you can’t find the ‘Settings’ and the ‘Import’, this is very likely that you don’t have access to it. 🔒 If that’s the case, then address this issue to your system administrator.
From the dropdown menu select Employees, select the type of data you want to import, find the desired file, upload it to the system, and click Next.
Once the spreadsheet is uploaded, you can verify if all fields were imported properly. If some fields were not automatically recognized by the system, make sure their names are correct, or specify the correct field manually.
The system supports automatic validation of imported data. If the imported data has an incorrect format, it will be colored in red.
If you made a mistake when entering data, correct the wrong values in the file and re-import the data. The duplicates will remain with the same data, and the incorrect lines will be updated.
Users can view the history of all uploaded files within the Import menu. Furthermore, the system provides important details on this page such as the number of imported or updated employees, and also the number of errors.
You can also open the journal and view detailed information about import errors.
Update employee profiles
If you need to update one or more employee profiles, you can also use the import functionality. All employee profiles are linked to the system by their ID or email.
When you import new data, double-check if the uploaded employee IDs correspond to their actual system IDs. If an employee ID doesn't match, a duplicate employee record will be created within the system. In case the import is successful, then the current profile data will get updated.
It is important to know that if you import departments, subsidiaries won’t be lined up automatically. After the data gets imported, you have to set up your department's structure manually.
FAQ
1. How can I add the Address, Post code, Street fields, and other custom fields to the employee profile in PeopleForce?
To add the Address, Post code, and Street fields to the employee profile in PeopleForce, you can create custom fields. Here's how you can do it:
Go to the Settings section in PeopleForce.
Find and select Employee Fields.
Create a new field for each of the desired fields, such as Address, Post code, and Street.
Save the custom field settings.
After adding custom fields in the settings, transfer their names to the import template. The system will automatically pull the data from these fields in the template into the custom fields in the system.
2. If I fill the "access" field with "1" in the employee import file, does that automatically send a notification/invitation to those employees to access PeopleForce?
No, filling the "access" field with "1" in the employee import file does not automatically send a notification or invitation to the employees. It simply grants them access to the system. You would need to send a separate invitation to the employees to grant them access to PeopleForce.
