Importing Data into Skills Base

This feature is available with the following licenses: Teams, Enterprise and Ultimate.

The Skills Base platform provides an easy to use and intuitive Data Importer that allows you to import data in bulk. Records are imported via CSV files. These files can be opened with Microsoft's Excel software and other spreadsheet programs capable of working with ".CSV" file types.

The Data Importer provides a preview of your import to allow you to validate the outcome prior to actually executing the import and committing the data.

Each CSV file can contain up to 2500 records of the chosen record type. The following record types can be imported:

Courses
Course Mappings
Locations
People
Qualifications
Qualification Assignments
Ratings: Self
Ratings: Supervisor
Roles
Skills
Skill Assignments
Targets
Teams

To begin, select Data Importer from the navigation pane. When selected, the type of import can be specified:

Once an import type selection is made, the selection will be highlighted.

In the example below, we have selected People to be imported. The file to be used is selected using the Browse facility which will access all drives and folders that are available to you.

There are two option available:

Create records - This option will result in new records being created.

Update record - This option will result in existing records being modified.

Select Next to continue with the import process.

Once selected, the mapping screen will be presented. The mapping screen allows you to identify and map the fields from the import file to both standard and custom fields previously created within Skills Base. In our example, we are mapping some of the fields in the import file to fields within Skills Base. The import file field names do not have to match the Skills Base fields names which provides flexibility and ease of use.

Custom fields must first be defined in Skills Base prior to mapping the fields to be imported.

For additional information regarding custom fields please refer to the article:

Custom fields - Skills Base Support (skills-base.com)

Records require identification to be specified. In our example we have selected Email as the identifier.

At this stage, you can either choose to go Back to the prior screen or Preview the import to ensure the data import will produce the desired outcome. When Preview is selected, the import progress bar will be displayed.

Once the preview preparation process completes, the potential import results will be presented along with information regarding the total records processed, the number of records that will be created, and any records that were skipped or failed. If this were an Update, the number of records to be updated would be shown.

The fields and action that will be taken are displayed. In our example, we have 17 records to be created in Skills Base.

At this stage, you can proceed with the import, return to the previous screen or download the log file which contains a comprehensive summary of everything that the import tool has pre-processed. You also have the option of bypassing any rows that contained an error because you are choosing to proceed regardless of the errors in the identified rows.

If you select Import to proceed, you will be prompted to respond to the confirmation notice.

If the preview results are aligned with the desired outcomes, you can select Confirm to process the import and commit the data to Skills Base. The outcome of the import will be presented. The final counts of records created or updated as well as any records skipped or that failed to be created will be shown.

Data Field References

All imports provide a Reference Guide which details the Fields, Data Types and Descriptions of each field to provide clarity regarding how the fields will be processed.

To display the reference guide, click on the link:

The following details the template fields, field data types, field rules and useful notes regarding the data each template supports.

Courses

📃 Example course import template file

Field	Max Character Length	Notes	Example
Course name	255 characters - text	Cannot be blank if mapped. Must be provided when creating new records	Intro to Java Programming
URL	1,000 characters - text	Cannot be blank if mapped. Must be provided when creating new records	https://test.course.com
Status	text	Cannot be blank if mapped. Valid values: offered	offered

Course Mappings

📃 Example Course Mapping import template file

Field	Max Character Length	Notes	Example
Course Name	255 characters - text	Cannot be blank if mapped.	Intro to Java Programming
Skill name	80 character - text	Cannot be blank if mapped	Java Programming
Skill level	number	Cannot be blank if mapped Must be provided when creating new records	3

Locations

📃 Example Locations import template file

Field	Max Character Length	Duplicates Allowed	Example
Location name	45	No	London Vic St.
Longitude		Yes	-0.13147
Latitude		Yes	51.499097

People

📃 Example People import template file

Field	Options	Max Character Length	Duplicates Allowed	Notes	Example
First Name		25	Yes		Frank
Surname		25	Yes		Smith
Team		45	Yes	Team must exist in Skills Base prior to People import being ran	Sr. Manager
Role		45	Yes	Role must exist in Skills Base prior to People import being ran	Accounting
Location		45	Yes	Location must exist in Skills Base prior to People import being ran	Boise
Skill set	"role", "team", "all", "custom"		Yes	The Skill Set will determine where People take their skills from for assessments (as per the Skill Assignment done manually or through the import routine)	Role
Security group*	Administrator, Supervisor, General staff		Yes		Supervisor
Email			No		frank.smith@example.com
Custom field (employee ID)		45	No		12345
Custom field (Tenure)		45	No		2 Years

Qualifications

📃 Example Qualification import template file

Field	Max Character Length	Notes	Example
Qualification name	255 characters - text	Cannot be blank if mapped Must be provided when creating new records	Certified Project Manager
Description URL	1,000 characters - text	Cannot be blank if mapped	https://www.skills-base.com

Qualification Assignments

📃 Example Qualification Assignment import template file

Field	Options	Duplicates Allowed	Notes	Example
Email	Any email address of a staff member	Yes		frank.smith@test.com
Qualification name		No	Qualifications do not need to exist when creating the assignment	PMP
Start date	yyyy-mm-dd	No	Date need to match the format set in the settings.	2018-05-01
End date	yyyy-mm-dd			2020-03-03
Status	completed, completing, nominated			Completed

Ratings: Self

📃 Example Self Ratings import template file

Field	Max Character Length	Notes	Example
Skill name		Cannot be blank if mapped	Java
Parent category name (Multi Value)		The parent Skill Category name. You can specify this column multiple times in a file to represent a hierarchy from left (parent) to right (child). Note that each column in the file needs to have a unique name. Example: Leadership skills	Programming Languages
Person email		Cannot be blank if mapped	frank.smith@example.com
Person full name		Cannot be blank if mapped	Frank Smith
Skill level		Cannot be blank if mapped Must be provided when creating new records	4
Interest level		Cannot be blank if mapped	5

Ratings: Supervisor

📃 Example Supervisor Ratings import template file

Field	Max Character Length	Notes	Example
Skill name		Cannot be blank if mapped	Java
Parent category name (Multi Value)		The parent Skill Category name. You can specify this column multiple times in a file to represent a hierarchy from left (parent) to right (child). Note that each column in the file needs to have a unique name. Example: Leadership skills	Programming Languages
Person email		Cannot be blank if mapped	frank.smith@example.com
Person full name		Cannot be blank if mapped	Frank Smith
Skill level		Cannot be blank if mapped Must be provided when creating new records	4
Interest level		Cannot be blank if mapped	5

Roles

📃 Example Role import template file

Field	Max Character Length	Duplicates Allowed	Example
Role name	45	No	People Manager

Skills

📃 Example Skill import template file

Field	Max Character Length	Duplicates Allowed	Notes	Example
Parent category (1)	60	Yes	A skill requires at least the highest parent category to be assigned, i.e. Parent category 1	Technical Skills
Parent category (2)	60	Yes	If additional category levels are not required, Parent category 2 and Parent category (n) can be deleted.	AWS
Parent category (n)	60	Yes
Name	80	No	Avoid duplicate skill names as they can cause confusion when completing assessments and running report	AWS Skills
Description	1000	Yes		This is the AWS Skill Description
Custom field name (1)		Yes	Hyperlink Custom Field type – must include “https://” Text Custom Field Type – 1000 maximum character length List Custom Field Type – options must already be included in the custom field list Attachment Custom Field Type – cannot be imported
Custom field name (n)		Yes

Skill Assignments

📃 Example Skill Assignment import template file

Field	Data Type	Notes	Example
Entity type	text	Cannot be blank if mapped Must be provided when creating new records Valid values: role, team, person	Role
Name	text	Cannot be blank if mapped Maximum length varies depending upon entity type	Project Manager
	text	Cannot be blank if mapped Must be provided when creating new records Valid values: skill, category	Skill
Parent category (1) (Multi Value)	text - 60 characters	The parent Skill Category name. You can specify this column multiple times in a file to represent a hierarchy from left (parent) to right (child). Note that each column in the file needs to have a unique name. Example: Leadership skills	Leadership Skills
Assignment name	text	Cannot be blank if mapped Maximum length varies depending upon entity type Skill or category name	Leadership

Targets

📃 Example Target import template file

Field	Options	Example
Entity Type	Team, Role, Person	Role
Entity name/Entity ID		Senior Developer
Skill name		CSS
Target skill level		4

Teams

📃 Example Team import template file

Field	Max Character Length	Duplicates Allowed	Example
Team name	45	Yes, but not recommended	Acme. Inc
Parent team	45	Yes	Accounting

Knowledge Base

Importing Data into Skills Base

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