As you set up and run your fundraiser, there are several places you may want to import information rather than enter it manually. This article will provide information to help you troubleshoot import errors that may occur as you craft your fundraiser.
What information can I import?
You can import information about:
- Participants and teams (team fundraising)
- Offline or paper raffle sales
- Activity results (A-thon)
How do I import information?
To import information, follow the steps below.
1. Download the template and save it to your computer.
2. Fill out the information and save the file on your computer.
3. When you’re ready to import the information, click SELECT FILE.
4. Select the file from your computer.
5. Click IMPORT.
The links below provide specific instructions on how to import information for each section.
- Participants and teams (Team fundraising)
- Offline or paper raffle sales
- Activity results (A-Thon)
Tips and Troubleshooting
Importing information to your experience is typically simple. Following the tips below will help ensure a smooth process.
All Imports:
Experience-specific information – All templates contain columns specific to your experience. Make sure to download the templates from the experience to which you will upload the information.
Changes to the template – Keep the column names when you download the template (changing them will cause the import to fail). Any changes to the column names, adding or deleting columns will cause the import to fail.
Required information – Only the columns with the information you selected as “required” in the experience setup will need to be filled out. Required information must be entered to complete a successful import. Columns that don’t pertain to your required information can be left blank. Here is where you can find the information marked as required.
- Participants and Teams - Team Fundraising Page
- Offline raffle sales – Basics page
- A-Thon activity – A-thon page
Phone numbers – When entering phone numbers, only include the numbers. Do not include any parenthesis ‘()’ or dashes. ‘-‘
A-thons and Peer to Peer Fundraising
Import teams before participants – You’ll want to make sure you’ve added all your teams before importing participants, as you can only import participants to teams already created. If you import a participant to a team that hasn’t been created, the participant will still be added to your fundraiser but not connected to any team.
Enter the activity exactly as it is written in the experience setup – If you are running a jog-a-thon and have entered the activity as ‘Running Laps’ in the experience setup, this exact text is required on the import template. Using only ‘Running’ will cause the import to fail. You can find the text required under the ‘A-Thon’ page in your experience setup.
Goal Units – This field needs to be filled with a numeric value of the participant’s fundraising goal. Adding a “$” will cause the import to fail.
Ability to edit personal fundraising page – You’ll need to fill in the email address column if you’d like imported participants to edit and customize their personal fundraising page. Adding a participant email will enable them to track their progress, modify their fundraising page, view their donors, add their activity results, and more. If you don’t want your imported members to access these features, leave the email column blank.
When importing participants, you can send them an email notifying them that they are added to the fundraiser.
Here is the information included in the email:
- Link to their personal fundraising page
- Link to their participant dashboard
- Link to the table for entering their activity amount
Offline Raffle Entries
Entry numbers – Raffle entry numbers are a required field in the template. The numbers are not required to be sequential but need to be on the spreadsheet to import.
Amount of purchase– The amount of the ticket purchase is not required. If you do add the amount of the purchase, the field needs to contain a numeric value. Adding a “$” will cause the import to fail.
What if my import fails?
If an import is unsuccessful, a pop-up screen like the one below will appear.
Under ‘ INVALID RECORDS,’ click on the number, and an excel file will automatically download. Open the file. Each entry with an error will be listed in the file, making it easy to fix those entries. Once corrected, try importing the information again.
