Import and Bulk Edit Custom Fields

Custom fields can be imported with profile, grant, donation, and scholarship imports. 

There are two ways to bring your external values for custom fields into records that already exist in CommunitySuite. The method that you will use will depend on your existing data.

The first option is bulk update records from a custom report. This method is best utilized when updating records that all need the same value. 

The second option is using an import to bulk update custom fields for records that exist within your site. This method involves importing custom field values into existing records and is best utilized when you are adding custom fields to existing records where there is a lot of variability.

Bulk Update From Custom Report

If you can filter to a group of records that all need to have the same custom field applied, you can build a custom report and use a Set Custom Field bulk action.

This example shows how to set values in bulk on grant records.

1. Build a custom report filtered to grants that all need the same custom field value. The only required field is Grant ID.
   • When Grant ID is added to the report, bulk actions, including Set Custom Field, appear in the left-side menu.
   • Set Custom Field only appears if the ID is added to the report. This is the same for other records. For profiles, use Profile ID, for funds use funit_id, grants use grant_id (and so on…).
      
2. Click Bulk Action in the left-side menu.
3. Click Set Custom Field. 
   • This allows you to choose which field you want to answer for everything in the report. In this case, there is only one field available.
     
      
4. Click the custom field name, so you can then choose the custom field answer from the custom field values.
   • In this example, the custom field is Multiselect.
   • In this example, this grantee works heavily with Goals 14 and 15.
     
      
5. Check the Goal 14 and Goal 15 boxes, and then click Save. 
   
    
6. Click [Yes] to set the custom fields.
   

The answers to custom fields can take some time to populate. To avoid a browser timeout, it runs as a background job.


 

When it is finished, you can look at the job and see the detail. If there are errors, the Message field will tell you what the errors are. 


 

The screenshot below shows a grant report with ID, Date, Amount, Grantee, and UN SDG goal with a filter for grants in 2020.


 

Import to Existing Records

For this example, we are going to do a bulk update with prior names using the custom field below.


 

1. Navigate to the Profiles page, then click Custom Fields in the left-side menu.
2. Create the custom field. 
   • The most important part of the field definition for any bulk updates is the Import Code field. This is the value that will be utilized as a column header within the bulk update template.  
3. Click Custom Field Objects in the left-side menu.
4. Click Import in the left-side menu.
5. Select the appropriate Object Type from the drop-down menu.
   • File Format Notes will adjust by Object Type.
   • A yellow warning will display at the top of the page if the import type you have selected does not have any custom fields with import codes assigned to them.
      
6. Click Download Template.
   • The template contains the custom field import code for each custom field of that object type.
7. Fill in your template and save the file as a .csv. 
   • Every custom field import code you leave on the template will be updated.
   • If you are not going to update values for one or more custom fields, delete those columns from the spreadsheet.
   • Importing a blank field will clear any existing values within the custom field for that ID.
   • If you are bulk importing any values into a multi-select field as part of new data or bulk updating data, the values need to be separated by a semicolon.
     • Example: "Crowley;Smith"
       
        
8. Click Choose File and upload your saved template file.
    
9. Click Process to upload your values into your custom fields.
   • Depending on the amount of data that is being imported, this may take some time.
      

Import New Records with Custom Fields

If profiles, grants, donations, or scholarships are being imported, custom fields can be added to the end of the import template to fill in that data with all of the imported content. For this example, we will continue to work with the prior name profile custom field.  

1. Navigate to the Profiles page, then click Import in the left-side menu.
2. Click Download Template.
   
    
3. Follow the in-system instructions when populating the profiles information in the spreadsheet.
4. To import custom fields with the profiles, add the import code as a column header at the end of the import template.
   • For the Prior Name field, you would add the pf_priorname import code at the end of the spreadsheet.
     
      
5. Import the profiles.

Troubleshooting Custom Fields Import Queue Full

If you view the background jobs while importing custom fields and notice the message below, the system has paused the import. This prevents the custom fields associated with this job from being imported. This may occur when the value in the custom field is a non-specified value.

1. Click Custom Fields in the left-side menu on any page that allows you to import custom fields to navigate to the Import Queue Summary.
2. Click Custom Field Objects in the left-side menu.
3. Click Process Import in the left-side menu.
4. Click Delete Import Queue in the left-side menu.
5. On your import spreadsheet, make sure all fields in the custom field columns match the options you have specified. 
6. Reupload the spreadsheet on the Custom Fields Import page, and then click Process.