Overview
When you have a lot of changes to make to People or Roles, it can be tedious and time-consuming. For a better way, try using our CSV Upload/Download option to update multiple People or Roles at once. In this article, we'll talk about how to do that!
Downloading the CSV
Important - Don't skip this step!
It can be tempting to skip this step, and create your own CSV - while there's nothing wrong with that, the format needs to be exact, so we recommend working out of a CSV downloaded from Parallax.
The Download CSV options both your People and Roles page, and allows you to get a CSV snapshot of your current Roles or People within Parallax. This let's you:
- Capture a moment in time for the state of Roles/People for later.
- Use the CSV to more easily scenario plan, in order to make the right Cost Rate changes.
- Upload changes for mass updates!
Here's what it will look like*:
*Parallax Tip - If you use Google Sheets, make sure you...
When opening your CSV in Google Sheets, you'll want to make your changes don't impact the format of any Cells. Also, be sure to download the Sheet as a CSV, since the Upload won't accept other formats!
CSV Upload
*Important - CSV Uploads are Not Reversible (but you can fix the issue if one occurs)
It's important to keep in mind that there is no "undo" for a CSV Upload.
If a mistake was made, you can make correct the file and then Upload again to correct any changes made a by a previous Upload. Please note, the correction upload will not remove or delete any Cost Rates that were added on an incorrect Effective Date - those would have be manually deleted from each Person or Role on the Settings > Roles or Settings > People page.
Always double-check your CSV file before Uploading!
Once you've got the desired changes saved to your CSV sheet, just use the Upload CSV button to bulk apply those changes. It's important to keep in mind the following when doing this:
- Effective Rate currently only affects Cost Rate Changes - the Date you select will not apply to other Changes such as Role Change.
- CSV Uploads are to update a Person's record's existing People/Roles - you cannot add or delete People or Roles using a CSV upload (this applies to Tags, too)
- There should never be duplicate IDs in a single upload. In other words, a Person can only be listed one time on the spreadsheet and not on multiple lines.
- CSV Uploads cannot be undone - so be careful! But, you can upload a new file if you make a mistake to correct the error.
If you want to make multiple Cost Rate changes with different Effective Dates to a Person or Role, you'll want to Upload multiple times (don't create multiple rows per Role!). Since Effective Dates are always put in chronological order don't worry if you upload those changes out-of-order!
Nothing changed & No Error!
If you try to make a change using a CSV Upload and nothing happens to the Person record(s), the first thing to check is the format.
A CSV file must be formatted exactly as it was downloaded to be accepted, so it's best to check your file to make sure it wasn't saved in a format other than CSV and no changes were made to the first line (headers) of the CSV file.
Another thing to check for is a conflicting Effective Date - two Cost Rate changes can't be made on the same date!
Finally, look for any double-IDs (someone listed more than once) that may be blocking one another. Remember, one upload means one change to the Settings > People Profile!