Troubleshooting Tips for Importing Records
Troubleshooting Tips for Importing Records
A service time wasn't found on Row X
Check that a service time is defined for that date/time combination. Common errors:
- The entered date specifies a different day of the week than intended, e.g. Monday instead of Sunday.
- Date is not in the expected format. See definitions below.
- A time was entered under the 'Service Time Id' field. Service time should be included as part of the date, leaving the 'Service Time Id' blank.
- An Event name was specified, but there is no matching Event name under "Events".
- You are trying to save a special event, such as Christmas, but haven't defined a matching event service time for that day of the week.
When looking up the offending row, keep in mind that the importer does not count the header row. e.g. Row 65 is really the 66th line in your file.
Invalid header
Is the file a comma-separated text file (.csv)? Download the sample csv file and use a text editor such as notepad to compare with your file.
CSV File Column Definitions
Campus Slug
Campus name. Must match name on website, including any spaces.
Category Name
Category name. Must match name on website, including any spaces. Caution: do not import data to a parent category! Parent categories should be virtual sums only. Importing data to them will cause all sorts of weird issues.
Value
The attendance amount as an integer value, or for currency a number with up to 2 decimals. Do not insert commas into this field.
Service Date Time
The date and time of the service. Allowable formats:
American MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM. e.g. 12/23/2018 10:00 [10am]
International YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM e.g. 2018-12-23 18:00 [6pm]
CM uses the international format when exporting data.
Event Name
Saves the record under a named event. Leave this column blank unless you are importing to an existing event service time.
Other
A special unspecified service time "Other" that is used for mid-week events, such as mid-week offerings. This column must be either blank or "Yes". If yes, then the service time specified under "Service Date Time" is ignored.
Service Time Id
An internal identifier used for re-importing exported data. Leave this column blank unless you know the service time id.
Your CSV file should look something like this:
To format the date column in Excel in the international format, use this custom format: "yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm".
Additional Tips
If you have more than 100 records, break up your import into multiple files. I (David) typically break by category and sometimes also by campus. The importer takes about 10 minutes per 500 records, and can timeout if there are too many records.
Consider importing troublesome entries such as events and offerings separately.
