Import Employee List

Personnel Folders 1.6.1

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The employee import feature allows you to automatically create employees in Personnel Folders based on data in an external file. To access the employee import feature, select "Import Employee List" from the "File" menu under the "Import External Data" option. You must have a data file open in order for this option to be enabled.

The external data file needs to be a text file with records and fields uniquely delimited. For example, the following example shows a valid input file with each field separated with a comma and each record separated with a new line:

Emp ID, First Name, Last Name, Birthdate, Hiredate

5012-A, Beverly, Cobb, 06-11-1977, 3-15-2000

5000-C, Bruce, Allen, 05-02-1972, 5-9-1999

4888-Q, Jack, Meyers, 11-22-1963, 9-19-2001

You can use any character for a delimiter. It is also recommended that you include the field headers in your input file so it is easier to match up the input fields with the corresponding data fields in Personnel Folders. It is ok for the text fields to be separated by quotes. There are options to automatically remove quotes as well as the header line so that it doesn't show up in the final data.

The available fields that can be imported include:

First Name	Nickname	Phone Number 4	Sec. Add. City	Cur. Job Status Additional Info.
Middle Name	Additional Info.	Prim. Add. Line 1	Sec. Add. State	Last Job Position
Last Name	Email 1	Prim. Add. Line 2	Sec. Add. Zip	Last Location
Initials	Email 2	Prim. Add. City	Sec. Add. Country	Last Department
Birthdate	Email 3	Prim. Add. State	Cur. Job Position	Last Job Status Start
Hire Date	Email 4	Prim. Add. Zip	Cur. Location	Last Job Status End
SSN/ISN	Phone Number 1	Prim. Add. Country	Cur. Department	Last Salary Number
Gender	Phone Number 2	Sec. Add. Line 1	Cur. Job Status Start	Last Salary Factor
Employee ID	Phone Number 3	Sec. Add. Line 2	Cur. Job Status End	Last Job Status Additional Info.

For Job Position, Location, and Department fields, this should be in text format. If no group already exists by that name, a new group will be created.

Current and last job information will be stored in a work status entry associated with the employee. The view and edit this work status information later, just open up an employee edit window and select the work status tab.

Your input file does not have to include every one of these fields. If your input file includes additional fields which do not map to any of these, then you must associate that data field with one of the provided "Unspecified" fields in the "Column Order" box. This ensures that the proper field order is maintained.

Simply follow the following instructions to complete the input process (These instructions are also provided on-screen):

1)	Select the input file.

2)	Select the appropriate field/record delimiters.

3)	Uncheck the columns in the "Column Order" box that do not appear in your data file.

·	(The "Unspecified" column is for a data field that appears in the input file but does not have a matching column in the "Column Order" box. This data cannot be imported and will be ignored. You still must identify these fields so that columns are kept in the proper order.)

4)	Adjust the column order in the "Column Order" box so that the fields in the table match the fields in the input file, (use the up and down arrow to adjust column order)

5)	Check the appropriate options in the "Additional Options" box.

6)	Click "OK".

The import procedure will then report how many employees were successfully inputted. One requirement enforced by the input process is that each employee must have a unique name. If there are duplicate employee names in the input file, then only the first one will be imported.

TIP: Depending on the amount of data in the import file, it could take Personnel Folders to refresh the input table after each setting change. To speed up this process, uncheck the "Auto-refresh table" box. This will allow you to make as many changes as needed without the table refreshing each time. You can then click the "Refresh" button to force the table to refresh so you can check to make sure you have the data fields set up correctly.