Format a CSV File to Import Data

You can import data into Bloomerang Volunteer from a comma-separated value (.CSV) file to:

• Import bulk data about volunteers and hours worked.
• Transfer data between Bloomerang Volunteer organizations.
• Quickly set up opportunities. 

Each column in the .CSV file has its own data type, formatting requirements, and length restriction.  If any of the data in the .CSV file does not meet these requirements, the import fails. This article describes these requirements and provides examples of correctly-formatted data so that you can set up your .CSV file and avoid import errors.

For information about how to import data from a .CSV file, read Import Volunteers or Import Hours Worked.

In this article:

• Profile Details
• Tags
• Form Questions
• Checkbox and Dropdown Form Questions
• Historical Hours Worked

Profile Details

In the Country field, Bloomerang Volunteer accepts only full country names, not country codes. While most country names are simple, others might not be obvious. For example, Bloomerang Volunteer accepts “United States” but not “USA” or “United States of America.” Other country names that might not be obvious include:

• United Kingdom
• China
• Russian Federation
• Iran, Islamic Republic of
• Congo, the Democratic Republic of the

Canadian provinces also have both English and French names, which may be the same or significantly different. For example: “British Columbia” in English is also “Colombie-Britannique” in French.

Tags

Each tag category has its own column in the .CSV file. The column header consists of the category’s name and nickname separated by a colon. For example, the column header for the tag category “My Category” with the nickname “myTags” would be “My Category:myTags”. For each donor, the column contains all of the tags from that category that are associated with that donor. Set the category’s Allocated Tags property to one of the following:

• Pick-one — The column will contain only one tag.
• Pick-multiple — The column can contain multiple tags.
• Empty — The column will not contain any tags.

The following table shows several examples of tag categories and their associated data formats.

Form Questions

Each response to a form question has its own column in the .CSV file. 

The following table shows how the column headers and contents are formatted for form question responses.

Checkbox and Dropdown Form Questions

For checkbox questions, each possible response has its own column. The headers of these columns consist of the form question name and the name of the response, separated by a colon.

Checkbox questions are always “pick-multiple”. If the donor selects a particular response in Bloomerang Volunteer, the corresponding column in the .CSV file contains the name of that response. If a donor does not select a particular response, the column for that response is empty.

Dropdown questions are always “pick-one,” so the volunteer can select only one option. The column header in the .CSV file contains the form question nickname, and the column contains the name of the option that the user selects.

The table below shows examples of checkbox and dropdown questions and how they appear in the .CSV file.

Historical Hours Worked

Related

• Import Volunteers
• Import Hours Worked