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Bulk Import: Column Review

How to review and assign column types during Bulk Import, including field type options like Poll, Date, and Timestamp, and other import considerations.

Recollective will inspect the Excel sheet provided and summarize how many columns and rows it has detected. Each column detected will be listed on the page along with sample data for that column.

Bulk Import Column Review showing three detected columns mapped to Standard fields for First Name, Last Name, and Email Address, with sample data available for review.

To complete this step, select a Column Type for each column or select Do Not Import to skip that column. Even though Recollective will pre-select the column type for you, you're welcome to make your own selections.

The available column types are:

  • Standard (e.g. first name, email)

  • Custom Field

  • New Custom Field

  • Assign Segment

  • New Segment

  • Assign Study

After selecting a column type, you may be asked for additional information. Areas that need your input will be highlighted in yellow.

For example, if you select New Custom Field you will be prompted to select one of the following field types:

  1. Poll: When labeling a Custom Field as a Poll, you will need to select whether it is single choice or multiple choice. In either case, Recollective will summarize how many choices will be created.

    1. Single Choice: The Single Choice Poll Field is recommended when participants are selecting one option from a list of distinct choices. If any exclusive choice includes commas, quotation marks will need to be added around the choice (i.e. “Cash, Credit”).

    2. Multiple Choice: The Multiple Choice Poll Field is recommended when participants have to select one or more options from a list of distinct choices. Poll choices here are separated by commas (i.e. Cash, Credit, Debit). To include a comma in the choice label, wrap the choice in double quotes (e.g. "Cats, dogs and birds","Fish, frogs and reptiles").

  2. Plain Text: Plain Text is recommended when each Participant has a unique value or text response and did not select from a list of closed-ended options.

  3. Formatted Text: Use this option only if the responses contain formatting such as paragraph separation, bolding, colors, italics, etc.

  4. Number: Any number that is formatted as a standard numeric value can be imported as a Number field. Some of your columns that contain numbers may also contain select additional characters (e.g., $40,000 should be imported as 40000) . “$”, “,”. and all other non-numeric characters will need to be removed in order to import the column as a Number field.

  5. Date: Date fields must use one of the following formats:

    1. MM / DD / YYYY

    2. DD / MM / YYYY

    3. YYYY / DD / MM

    4. YYYY / MM / DD

  6. Timestamp: Timestamp field values are typically date-time values in Excel (e.g. "2022-03-21 8:00:00 PM") but they can also be the number in milliseconds and use Unix epoch time (e.g. "1647907200000" represents March 21, 2022 at 8:00 PM Eastern Time). Unix epoch time is measured from January 1, 1970 at 00:00:00 UTC. Timestamp values must be provided in milliseconds, not seconds (for an example, visit https://currentmillis.com).

Important Considerations

Please be aware of the following:

  • If First Name or Last Name are omitted and those fields are available during Account Registration, Panelists will be prompted to complete the missing information upon their first visit.

  • If Usernames are provided, they must be unique across all Panelists and Admins. They cannot contain spaces or use special characters (dashes and underscores are permitted)

  • If Usernames are omitted, Recollective will create one using the pattern FirstName_LastInitial or just FirstName if no last name has been provided.

  • An External ID is any unique value assigned to the users from an external system. This identifier must be unique across all Panelists and Admins

  • Segment and Study assignment columns must contain either a "1" (indicating that the Panelist should be assigned to the Segment or Study), a "0" (indicating that the Panelist should be removed from the Segment or Study), or be left blank (indicating that a panelist should not be assigned to a Segment or Study, but should not be removed either).

  • Multiple Poll Choices must be delimited by commas (e.g. cats,dogs,birds,fish,frogs) - to include a comma in the choice label, wrap the choice in double quotes (e.g. "Cats, dogs and birds","Fish, frogs and reptiles").

  • State can be used to bulk activate or deactivate Panelists (use "1" for Active and "0" for Inactive)

  • Incentive Points is available only when importing within a study that has Points enabled. A positive value will add points to the participant's total points balance in the study while a negative value will subtract points.

🗣️ Still have questions or want to leave feedback on how we can do better? Contact us at [email protected].

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