Adding Clients via Bulk Import

Transcript

There is another way to add clients to the system and that's by doing bulk import. To bulk import clients you can go to the Client section on the right of the screen and you can click the three stacked lines – the hamburger menu – and you can click Download Client Template.

From Export Options: you can either choose an Empty Template or choose All Data.

Make your decision, and click the Next button.

Export All Data

If you choose All Data that's going to download active clients that have already been added to the system. This could be useful if you're seeking to update existing client records using the bulk import.

Export Empty Template

I would select Empty Template if you're wanting to add new clients for the first time to R2D2.

To download Empty Template, you need to click the Download File button and then open the Excel spreadsheet that downloads to your machine. The spreadsheet has column titles such as First name, Last name, Date of Birth, but no data. Each column corresponds to a field that you may have already seen if you've watched the instructional video about direct entry of clients. You need to fill out one row per client.

Please note that for the demographics fields (Gender, Aboriginal, CALD, Disability) you have options available via a drop-down menu and it's important that you use them. If you try and type in your responses and you write something that's different than the drop-down option, or you have a typo or something like that, R2D2 is going to recognise it as dirty data, and it won't allow it into the system.

Also, use the drop-down menu at Status to select Active. That will mean you don't have to then go into each record you've just uploaded and activate it one‑by‑one. I would also just point out that the bulk import is generally best if you've got a client management system that is able to export that data in bulk and then you can format it quickly aligning with this spreadsheet, and then import it in one go. Filling out row by row, just by typing it in yourself, might actually take longer than doing direct entry of clients in R2D2 — but ultimately the decision is up to you.

Upload a client import Excel spreadsheet to R2D2

I’m now going to demo what it looks like to upload a client import Excel spreadsheet to R2D2.

Step 1

From the Home screen, go to the Client section on the right of the screen and can click the three stacked lines – the hamburger menu. Select Import Clients.

At the bottom of the screen, use the Choose File button to select your Excel spreadsheet, and then, at the top of the screen, click Next.

Step 2

This step, step two, is requiring you to match column headers to data and click next to continue.

So basically we're checking that the field headings in R2D2 are reading the column headings from the Excel spreadsheet. Each field title and field content should match. For example, the field title ‘Gender’, should have a field under it reading ‘Gender’.

At the bottom of the screen we can see a preview of the data.

Scroll up to the top of the screen and click Next.

Step 3

We go to step three, where it's processing the data and it's going to tell us whether or not there are any issues with it.

If we did make any mistakes, the system would generate a number that indicates how many rows have issues and those rows aren't going to be imported. In this case, you can click the Export Errors button at the top of the screen. It will generate an Excel spreadsheet which will tell you the nature of the errors so that you could go back, fix up your spreadsheet and then go back to the start and re-upload the new and improved spreadsheet, and get back to this point and then hopefully reach a stage where you've got no rows with invalid data.

If your spreadsheet has no issues, click Next.

A window will display, saying ‘Valid data will be imported - do you wish to continue?’

Click OK in that window.

Step 4

Step four will begin: processing the data.

When this is complete, click the Return to Client button at the top of the screen. This will take you to the Client screen, where you can see the list of all clients, and their status.

Page last updated 26 May 2023