Importing ideas

Importing ideas into the community is possible from CSV files.

Community administrators and owners of spaces, groups, and projects can import ideas to a community space from a spreadsheet or a database. You import the data as a comma-separated values (CSV) file, which you can generate from programs, such as Microsoft Excel.

Data that you import always creates a new community idea for each item in the CSV file. Consequently, if you import a CSV made from a spreadsheet that you exported, you create duplicates of the ideas if they're still in the community. For more information about exporting ideas, see Exporting ideas.

CSV file structure

Only three fields are used for new ideas: title, description, and stage. The rest of the data in the CSV file is ignored.

The first line of the CSV files must include the following headers, separated by commas. The second and the following lines must each include fields of an idea for export, separated by commas.

For example, a CSV file for importing ideas may look like this: 

subject,body,stage 
The first idea,Idea 1 description,Active 
The second idea,Idea 2 description,In Progress 
The third idea,Idea 3 description,Coming soon

You can download an example CSV file here: ImportExample.csv.

Importing ideas

Before you start, you must prepare a CSV file with the ideas you want to import.

To import ideas:

  1. Go to the place in the community where you want to import the ideas.
  2. Click Manage > Import Ideas.
  3. Under Choose a CSV file to upload, click Browse.
  4. In the dialog box, select the prepared CSV file, and then click Open.
  5. Click Upload File.
  6. Match the Title, Description, and Stage to the categories in your CSV file.
    For example, you might have the subject, body, and stage categories in your CSV file. In this case, you need to map as follows:
    • Title > subject
    • Description > body
    • Stage > stage
  7. Check at the example list of data beneath the mapping to ensure that the values there are what you want to be imported into the idea fields.
  8. Click Accept.
  9. On the Import Ideas page, check the ideas to be imported and clear the check boxes for the ones you don't want to import.

    You can also edit any of the ideas you import by clicking Edit next to the idea.

  10. Click Import Selected Ideas.

If there aren't any errors in the imported data, new ideas are created for the data you've imported. If there are errors in the data, you will be prompted to either enter new data that fixes the error or clear the checkbox for that entry so that an idea isn't created from it.