Import staff data

You can import your employees information into Deskradar using comma-separated data.

Import feature allows you to update information of the marker details, create and delete markers, and move markers to specific buildings, floors and desks.

Here are some scenarios for which you can use the import feature:

• Initial import of the employee data.
• Employee joins or leaves the company.
• Employee contact data or availability changes.
• Employee is moved to a different desk on the same floor, on a different floor in the same building, or in a different building.

Import feature generic information

Refer to the generic information about the import feature.

Import data requirements

Following columns are important for Staff import:

CSV data column	Required?
Building name	Yes
Floor label	Yes
Email	Yes
Location ID	No

Building name and floor label

In order to be able to unambiguously determine marker location, it is required to provide building name and floor label columns in CSV data.

Requirements that must be met on the given Deskradar instance before importing Staff data:

• At least one building must exist
• At least one floor must exist in that building
• Buildings must have unique names
• Within each building, floors must have unique labels

Email

Actual markers, which need to be updated are found by email. Therefore the email column is required in the CSV data.

Requirements that must be met on the given Deskradar instance before importing Staff data:

• Email column value must be in a valid email format
• Existing Staff markers must have unique email addresses

Location ID

Location ID column is not required, but is important. It determines the position of the Staff marker on a given floor plan.

Location ID in Deskradar is expected to identify (uniquely on the floor) a spot on a floor plan. For Staff markers, location ID is a particular seat ID or a desk number.

• On each floor, values of the location ID field defined on markers must be unique.
• Location ID column value can contain letters, numbers, _, ., :, /, \ and -. No space character is allowed. Maximum value length is 36 characters.

Import process

Importing employee contact and desk assignment data involves matching, updating, placement and removal processes.

Matching

For Staff imports, existing markers are matched with the CSV data entries using email.

Any existing Staff marker with the email specified in the CSV data entry will be updated using the data from the CSV entry.

If the given email is found on a marker of type other than Staff, the entry will be marked as failed.

If no matching marker is found, new marker is created.

Updating

Deskradar offers two ways update existing marker attributes: marge attributes and replace attributes.

In merge attribute update mode, teh attribute values defined on existing marker are merged with CSV data entry. After the import, the matched marker still has attributes, which were not defined in the CSV data.

In replace attribute update mode, any attribute defined on marker which is not defined in the CSV data will be cleared.

Exception is marker image. Disregarding the update mode setting, the image attribute is not updated or cleared by the import (in the current product implementation).

Example. Existing marker has following attributes:

Name	Email	Role	Status	Status Text
Max	max@acme.com	Empty	unavailable	Vacation

User Max updated his own marker status and status text.

Editor user starts the import with following CSV data with the corresponding column mapping:

Name	Email	Role
Max	max@acme.com	Engineer

Expected results of the import depending on the update mode setting:

Update mode	Role	Status	Status text
Replace	Updated to Engineer	Reset to available (default)	Cleared
Merge	Updated to Engineer	Kept unavailable	Kept Vacation

Placement

Placement is determining where on the floor plan should the marker be positioned.

Location ID is crucial for placement.

To move markers to different building, floor or desk, import a CSV file with updated building name, floor label and location ID for specific email.

In your CSV data you can specify location ID currently defined on an existing Spare Desk, Hot Desk or another Staff marker. If target location ID is defined on a Room or Utility marker, such CSV entry will be marked as Failed.

Example. Existing marker is located in building Chicago on the floor 2 and has the following attributes:

Name	Email	Location ID
Max	max@acme.com	W-200

Max has joined another team and moves to a desk E-320 on floor 3. Editor user imports the following CSV data:

Building name	Floor label	Location ID	Name	Email
Chicago	3	E-320	Max	max@acme.com

Here is what happens during the import:

In case there is existing Spare Desk or Hot Desk marker with location ID E-320 on floor 3:

• the marker Max is placed on the position of that existing Spare Desk or Hot Desk marker and marked as Updated in import job details page;
• the existing Spare Desk or Hot Desk marker is removed;
• new Spare Desk marker with location ID W-200 is created on previous position of marker Max on floor 2;

In case there is existing Staff marker Jane with location ID E-320 on floor 3 (the desk is taken by someone else):

• the marker Max is placed on the position of that existing Staff marker Jane and marked as Updated in import job details page;

• the existing Staff marker Jane:

  • is placed in an arbitrary position in the top left corner of the floor 3 floor plan, and marked as Unplaced in the import job details;
  • or is updated and moved, if Jane is also in the CSV data;
  • or is removed, if removal is enabled for the import job;

• new Spare Desk marker is created on previous position of marker Max on floor 2;

In case no marker with location ID E-320 exists on floor 3:

• the marker Max is placed in an arbitrary position in the top left corner of the floor 3 floor plan, and marked as Unplaced in the import job details;

Editors can complete the import by dragging the markers highlighted as Unplaced in the import job report into their actual positions on the floor plan.

Here are some more placement scenarios.

Desk newly assigned, target desk marker exists.

Scenario	Result
Desk (Location ID) newly assigned, target desk marker exists	Marker moved to the target desk location
Desk (Location ID) newly assigned, target desk marker doesn't exist	Marker moved to top-left position on target floor plan
Desk (Location ID) unassigned	Marker moved to top-left position on target floor plan. Spare Desk marker created on previous location.
Different desk assigned	Marker moved to target desk location. Spare Desk marker created on previous location.
No location ID not defined on marker. No location ID column is imported. Floor and building unchanged.	Marker remains in its original position.
Imported location ID is the same as the one defined on marker. Floor and building unchanged.	Marker remains in its original position.

Removal

Deskradar can remove Staff markers. This might be useful when employees leave the company and must not be displayed on the floor plans anymore.

Marker removal is irreversible.

During the import it is determined which markers, that currently exist on Deskradar instance, are unmatched, which means there is no information about them in the CSV data.

Deskradar supports 3 modes for marker removal: None, Imported Floors and All Unmatched.

Removal scope: None

Set removal scope to None to disable unmatched marker removal.

Removal scope: Imported Floors

Set removal scope to Imported Floors to remove unmatched Staff markers, which are located on the floors explicitly defined in floor label column in the current CSV file.

Example. You have floors 1 and 2 in a building. Markers Max and Jane exist on floor 1, and marker Peter exists on floor 2. Marker Jane is moved to floor 2. Editor imports the updated information for floor 2 only, which includes only Jane with floor label set to 2. Removal scope is set to Imported Floors.

After the import, Jane is moved to floor 2. Peter is removed, because the marker is on the imported floor, but not in the CSV. Max remains on floor 1 because the marker is not on the imported floor.

Removal scope: All Unmatched

Set removal scope to All Unmatched to remove all unmatched Staff markers across all buildings and floors available on the given Deskradar instance.

Example. You have floors 1 and 2 in a building. Markers Max and Jane exist on floor 1, and marker Peter exists on floor 2. Marker Jane is moved to floor 2. Editor imports the updated information for floor 2 only, which includes only Jane with floor label set to 2. Removal scope is set to All Unmatched.

After the import, Jane is moved to floor 2. Peter and Max are removed, because there is no data about them in the CSV.

Download CSV template

The easiest way to get started with preparing data for the import is to download the CSV template.

• Click on Import/Export icon in the sidebar
• Click Start Import button
• Click Staff in Select marker type you'd like to import selector
• Click Download CSV template button

Example CSV contains the columns for the data you can import for the Staff marker type.

Export current data for editing

Learn more about exporting your data

Create import job

1. Click on Import/Export icon in the sidebar.
2. Click Import tab.
3. Click Start import button.
4. Select Staff as marker type for import and click Continue.
5. Click Browse, select a CSV file and click Continue.
6. In the column mapping table, on the left you see the columns from your CSV. From the dropdowns on the right, select which Deskradar marker attribute corresponds to each CSV column.
7. Enable Merge existing marker attributes option if required.
8. Set Removal scope for unmatched markers to the value of your choice.
9. Click Start import.