Importing User Profiles

Preparing your Data for Import 

Note: One Standard Import of contact information for your users is included in the purchase of a PLUS account subscription.  Additional fees apply to non-PLUS accounts.  Click on your region for more information on pricing: US, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, UK. 

File format: 

• Spreadsheet must be saved as a Microsoft Excel file in .XLSX format. 
• Worksheet containing the volunteer data to be imported must be named “UserData“. 

Worksheet Layout: 

• First row of the spreadsheet must contain the column headings.  Start the volunteer contact information on row 2. 
• Column heading names must be exactly as specified (and in the same order as) in the “Column Definitions” requirements (below). 
• Columns that your organization does not use must not be deleted from the spreadsheet. 

Formatting: 

• Do not merge, filter, wrap or hide columns 
• Columns other than date columns must be formatted within Excel as “General” 
• All date columns must be consistently formatted; as our import software requires this before we can proceed with any data imports
  • For North America, please ensure your dates are all consistently formatted as MM/DD/YYYY (Month/Day/Year)
  • For UK/EU/AU/NZ, please ensure your dates are consistently formatted as DD/MM/YYYY (Day/Month/Year) 

IMPORTANT: It is essential that any data to be imported conforms to the specifications listed above. Incomplete or improperly formatted data cannot be processed.  All columns must be included (in the correct order) even if you do not use them. 

Note: Importing of custom information (i.e. Custom Fields, Qualifications, General Interests, General Availability and Hours Log values) is subject to additional fees, as are subsequent “standard” imports.  Please contact us if you wish for a quote on your custom import. When preparing a custom import file, please ensure that there is one row per volunteer profile and the custom information is added in columns to the right of the “Status” column. 

Sending us your Data 

Let us know when your data import spreadsheet is ready.  We will enable the Setup File Exchange to enable you to securely share import and results files. Once that is done, you can upload your spreadsheet by following the steps below: 

1. Go to: Configuration then click on “Setup File Exchange” found in the sidebar under Organization Settings 

2. Click on the [Browse] button to select and upload your data import spreadsheet 

3. Enter a description of your import in the “Description” field (example: you might want to let us know the desired language and username prefix here) 

4. Click the [Submit] button. Better Impact staff will be alerted that your data import is ready to be processed 

Once your data has been uploaded, you can download the results of the import (i.e. usernames and passwords that were generated) by following the steps below: 

1. Go to: Configuration then click on “Setup File Exchange” found in the sidebar under Organization Settings  

2. You will see the list of file names, descriptions, and the date they were uploaded 

3. Mouse over the Options icon to the left of the results file 

4. Select “Download” 

Once you no longer need the file from the Setup File Exchange please delete it and let us know so we can turn off the feature. 

Column Definitions 

All columns listed below must be included in your spreadsheet. Columns where a value is required are marked with an asterisk (*). 

• Salutation: maximum 50 characters (e.g. Mr, Miss, Mrs, Ms, etc.) 
• *FirstName: maximum 50 characters (enter “please update” if the value is not known) 
• *LastName: maximum 50 characters (enter “please update” if the value is not known) 
• MiddleName: maximum 50 characters 
• Suffix: maximum 50 characters 
• LegalFirstName: maximum 50 characters 
• *AddressLine1: maximum 50 characters (enter “please update” if the value is not known) 
• AddressLine2: maximum 50 characters 
• *City: maximum 50 characters (enter “please update” if the value is not known) 
• *Province (Canada), State (USA, Australia, New Zealand) or County (UK, Ireland): use the appropriate code for the province/state/county (see section below for a list of codes) (enter ’00 if not known or not applicable) 
• *Country: enter the correct country from the listing of countries (see section below for a list of countries) (enter “OTHER” if the value is not known) 
• *PostalCode (Canada), ZipCode (USA), PostCode (UK, Australia): maximum 10 characters (enter “pls update” if the value is not known) 
• HomePhone: maximum 25 characters, ONE phone number only (spaces permitted) 
• WorkPhone: maximum 25 characters, ONE phone number only (spaces permitted) 
• WorkPhoneExt: maximum 10 characters, numeric values only (no dashes, spaces or other characters) 
• CellPhone or MobilePhone: maximum 25 characters, ONE phone number only (spaces permitted) 
• EmailAddress: maximum 100 characters, ONE valid email address only 
• SecondaryEmailAddress: maximum 100 characters, ONE valid email address only 
• MobileEmailAddress: maximum 100 characters, ONE valid email address only 
• Birthday: consistently and fully formatted (month, day and year) 
• *DateJoined: consistently and fully formatted (month, day and year) 
• *Status: enter the correct profile status 

Sample Spreadsheets for your Region 

A sample spreadsheet for your region can be downloaded by clicking on the desired link below: 

• Canada: sample spreadsheet 
• United States of America: sample spreadsheet 
• United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland: sample spreadsheet 
• Australia and New Zealand: sample spreadsheet 

Enterprise Imports 

If you are importing data for profiles in multiple organizations, you’ll need to include each organization’s name as a separate column immediately after the “Status” column. 

• Each profile in your import must belong to at least one organization (but can belong to multiple organizations) 
• To indicate that a profile is part of an organization, enter a “1” (or “X” or “Yes”) in the column corresponding to the organization to which they belong 

Provinces, States, Counties 

Below, you will find lists of the 2-3 character codes for the provinces/states/counties used in a data import. 

Country Names 

Below, you’ll find country names you can use in a data import. 

The following is a list of valid country names that can be included in a data import. Exact matches are required.  Use “USA” for “United States of America” and “United Kingdom” for “England”, “Scotland”, “Wales” or “Northern Ireland”. 

Module Profile Status Options

When performing a data import, we can import into different modules, depending on what you have purchased. Profiles for each module must be in separate spreadsheets or worksheets, formatted per the specifications. For each of the modules you have purchased, here are the list of statuses that can be specified for a profile. 

Username Prefix 

Usernames must be at least 6 characters in length. When the data import is performed, a prefix is assigned (example: “orgvol-“), followed by a unique sequential number (example: “101”) that is generated automatically. You can specify one prefix that you would like used in generating usernames for all of your users. 

Language/Region 

You can assign one default language to all profiles that will determine the display language for MyImpactPage.com menus and how dates and times will be displayed to users. If no language is specified, the default setting on the user’s computer will be used. Volunteers can change this value without affecting you or any other user. Choices are: 

• English (Canada) 
• English (USA) 
• English (UK) 
• English (Australia) 
• English (New Zealand) 
• Français (Canada) 
• Español 
• Portuguese 

Emailing People their Username and Password 

Once the data has been imported, we’ll upload a results spreadsheet, into the Setup File Exchange, that contains the usernames and passwords that were created for your users. 

In order to communicate that information to them (without sending them that spreadsheet), you can perform a “Mail Merge”. The components are: 

• Microsoft Outlook: to send the email 
• Microsoft Excel: the data import results spreadsheet 
• Microsoft Word: a document that contains the instructions you’d like to send them along with “Merge Fields” that look up the corresponding information in the spreadsheet 

If you are not familiar with how to perform a Mail Merge, there is a useful article on the Microsoft support pages, as well as one on Google Workspace for Google/Gmail users, that explain how to do that. 

Note: If you have manually created profiles for your users, you can generate a Personal Profile Export that contains their name, email address, username and any other relevant information. Since password information cannot be viewed or exported, you would need to create a column in the spreadsheet for the user’s password and enter it manually.