Import from CSV

CSV is the most flexible way to bring people into Scout. Any spreadsheet that can save as .csv will work. A CSV import creates people and nothing else, so it is worth knowing what Scout can read before you export.

Format your spreadsheet

First name and Last name are required on every row. An email address on its own is not enough.

Scout can store ten columns from a CSV:

• First name, Last name (both required)
• Email, Phone
• Address, City, State, Zip
• Type (adult or child, lowercase; blank becomes adult)
• Gender (free text, up to 30 characters)

That is the entire list. Your headers do not have to match those names, because Scout guesses the mapping from your header row and lets you correct it.

Anything else in the file has nowhere to land: birthdays, marital status, a household or family name, giving totals, custom fields. Leave those columns set to Skip during mapping. Birth dates go in one person at a time afterwards: open the profile, click the pencil beside their name, and fill in Birth date.

Run the import

1. 1

   Open the importer

   On the People page, click Import and choose From CSV. The Import button is on the desktop and tablet layout, not on a phone.

2. 2

   Upload the file

   Click Click to upload a CSV file and pick your file. It needs a header row plus at least one row of data, or Scout answers CSV must have a header row and at least one data row.

3. 3

   Map the columns

   Scout lists every column in your file under CSV Column, with a Maps to dropdown and a sample of the first three values beside it. It pre-fills whatever it can guess from your headers. Correct anything it missed, and set anything Scout cannot store to Skip. Until both First Name and Last Name are mapped, the import button stays disabled and the page reads Map both First Name and Last Name to continue.

4. 4

   Read the preview

   Under Preview you get the first 5 rows exactly as Scout will store them, using only the columns you mapped. This is the last place to catch a wrong mapping.

5. 5

   Check the file

   Click Check 240 people (the button counts your rows). Scout reads the whole file, tells you how many it will create and how many it will skip, and lists anything it cannot use. Nothing has been written yet.

6. 6

   Start it and stay on the page

   On this lane your browser tab is doing the work. Leave it open until it finishes: closing the tab or clicking away pauses the import where it stands, and Scout warns you before letting you go. A paused import is not lost — see If you have to stop below.

When it lands you get Import complete with a green check and a count reading 240 added, 6 skipped, then Scout's first read with the headcount Scout now holds and a See what Scout noticed button into the dashboard.

If you have to stop

Closing the tab pauses the import at the row it reached. Come back to People → Import and the page offers it back: it names the file and says how far it got, and Resume import picks up from exactly there. Nobody gets imported twice.

Discard it throws away every row still waiting, so Scout asks first and says how many. The people already imported stay in Scout either way — discarding clears the queue, it doesn't undo anything.

When a row will not validate

A bad row is parked, not fatal. Scout writes the rows it can and records what happened to each one, so a single unreadable email no longer costs you the other 239 people. The done screen lists what was skipped and why, with the row number, and Download report gives you the whole list as a CSV to fix and re-upload.

Two problems account for most of them:

• An email cell that is not a valid address. A cell holding none or no email parks that row.
• A Type cell that reads Adult or Child. The column accepts lowercase adult and child only. Blank cells are fine and become adult.

Phone numbers behave differently. Scout stores US 10-digit numbers, and a number it cannot read as one is dropped quietly rather than raising an error. If your list has international numbers, open a few profiles afterwards and check.

What a CSV import does not do

It does not build households. Every row becomes one person, unconnected to anyone else. Link families afterwards from a person's profile, in the Household section, using Add family member. If you are coming from Planning Center, Import from Planning Center brings households across for you.

There is no undo. Scout has no rollback and no import history screen, and Settings has no Imports tab. Scout also has no control for deleting or archiving a person, so a file imported with the columns crossed is repaired by editing people one at a time, or by merging records under Find duplicates. The preview is the only place this gets caught cheaply.

It carries no history. Notes, giving, serving, check-ins, and group membership cannot be mapped from a CSV.

After import

1. Read the Skipped list on the done screen. Scout skips any row whose first name, last name, and email all match someone already in your directory, ignoring capitalization, and names each one as Sarah Mitchell (duplicate). That also means running the same file a second time adds nobody.
2. Scan for the near-misses it could not catch. A row with a different email address, or with no email where the existing record has one, comes through as a second record. On the People page, click Find duplicates to review and merge those. Merging is permanent, and the absorbed record is kept in the audit log. See Cleaning up duplicates.
3. Add what the spreadsheet could not carry. Households, birth dates, and anything else you had to skip. See Reading a person's profile.