Importing bookings from a CSV

Moving to 1pm from another booking system or a spreadsheet? You can bring your bookings across in one go instead of typing them in. Export them as a CSV from Tripleseat, Total Party Planner, Aisle Planner, a booking diary in Excel or a Google Sheet, upload the file, match its columns, and 1pm creates the bookings and their clients for you. Past bookings come across too, so your history and your reports start complete.

This article covers the bookings CSV import: the file, matching columns, what your old system's statuses and room names mean in 1pm, how clients are found or added, Space clashes, re-importing, undo, and the common gotchas.

CSV import is available on a paid plan. On the free trial you add bookings one at a time, and the import page tells you so.

Where to find it

Go to Events, open the ⋯ menu beside the New event button, and choose Import bookings from a CSV. (If you have renamed events in your account, the menu uses your own word.)

The page shows how many more bookings will fit before you reach the per-account limit, a Download template button, and the file upload form.

Nothing is sent

Importing sends nothing. No client is emailed, no confirmation goes out, and no automation runs for an imported booking. A booking you bring in from last year should not email its client a "your booking is confirmed" message today, so the import never does. Anything you want to send, you send from the booking afterwards, as usual.

The file

Any CSV with a header row works. The first row names the columns and each row below it is one booking. The columns can be called anything and come in any order, because you choose where each one goes after you upload. An export from another system is fine as it is.

If you're building a list by hand, click Download template for a CSV with a column for every field and two example rows.

Upload, match columns, import

Choose your file and click Upload and match columns. Nothing is imported yet.
Each column of your file is listed with a few example values and a dropdown saying where it goes. 1pm fills these in from the column names ("Event Date", "Guest Count", "Room" and "Contact Email" all land where you'd expect). Check them and change any that are wrong.
Check which way round your dates are written, then choose the status and the Space for rows that don't give one.
If your file has a Status or a Space column, check what each value means (see below).
Underneath is a preview. It counts how many bookings will be created, how many new client contacts that makes, and how many rows are skipped or have problems, and lists every row with its outcome. It updates each time you change something.
Click Import. The button says how many bookings it will create.

What each column can be

The booking:

Booking name. Up to 200 characters. Leave it out and the booking is named after its client's business, or the client's name.
Date. Required. Year first (2027-05-15), or day first or month first as set under Dates are written. See "Day first or month first".
End date. For a booking over several days.
Start time and end time. 14:30, 2:30 PM or 2pm. A booking that finishes earlier in the day than it starts (6 PM to 1 AM) runs past midnight, and ends the next day.
Access from and vacate by. When setup can start and when the room has to be clear, in the same time formats.
Status and Space. In your old system's words. See the next two sections.
Zone. The part of the Space the booking uses, such as "east wing".
Guests (pax). A whole number.
Booking value. "$1,250.00", "1250" and "AUD 1250" all read as 1,250. Use a dot for cents. A value written with a comma for cents, like "1.250,00", is an error rather than a guess.
Service style and setup style. Plated, buffet, rounds of 10, theatre and so on.
Booking reference. The booking's id or number in your old system. See "Importing the same file again".

The client:

Client full name, or client first name and client last name as separate columns.
Client business, client email and client phone.

Other:

Notes. Your own notes on the booking, which only you see. Up to 4,000 characters.
Add to notes. The column is added to the booking's notes as "Column name: value". Use it for anything worth keeping that has no field of its own, like an event type or a sales owner from your old system. If that takes the notes past 4,000 characters, the added text is cut to fit and the preview marks the row.
Don't import. The column is left out.

Day first or month first

03/04/2027 is 3 April in Australia and the UK, and March 4 in the US. The Dates are written setting says which your file uses: Day first (15/05/2027) or Month first (05/15/2027).

1pm sets it from your file where it can. A date like 15/05/2027 can only be day first, and 05/15/2027 can only be month first, so the first such date decides it, and the line under the setting names it. When every date in the file is 12 or under on both sides, nothing in the file decides it: check the Date as read column in the preview, which shows each date the way it will be imported, such as "Sat 3 Apr 2027".

Year-first dates (2027-05-15) and dates with the month written out (15 May 2027) read the same either way. A saved mapping remembers the setting.

What each status means

Every system names its stages differently: "Definite", "Prospect", "1st hold", "Closed won". When your file has a Status column, the matching screen lists each status in it, with how many rows have it, and what it will be in 1pm. Common words are filled in for you ("Definite", "Booked" and "Paid" become Confirmed, "Hold", "Held" and "Pencil" become Tentative, "Lost" becomes Cancelled). Change any of them, or choose Don't import these rows to leave out, say, every lost lead.

A blank status, or one you leave on Status chosen above, takes the status you chose for the whole file.

Past bookings come in as Completed. A Tentative or Confirmed booking whose last day is before today has already happened, so it is imported as Completed. A cancelled one stays Cancelled.

Which Space each room is

When your file has a Space column (often called Room or Venue), the matching screen lists each room name in it and the Space it will be booked into. Names that match one of your Spaces are filled in for you. For the rest, pick the Space, or leave it on No Space: the booking is imported without a Space and the room name from the file goes in its notes, so nothing is lost.

A blank cell takes the Space you chose for the whole file.

If you haven't set up your Spaces yet, do that first. Every room you'll book becomes one Space, and the import can then put each booking in the right one.

Clients

For each row, 1pm looks for the client among your contacts the same way the contacts import does: the same email address, then the same mobile number, then the same first name, last name and business.

A client you already have is linked to the booking. Their details aren't changed by the file.
Anyone else is added as a new contact and linked. Several bookings for the same new client share one contact.
A client given only as a business is linked to your one contact with exactly that business name. If several of your contacts have it, the booking is imported without a client and the preview says so: add the client's name or email to the file to choose one.
Any other row with a client but no first name (a business nobody has, or an email that matches nobody) is imported without a client, because a new contact needs a first name. The preview says so.

New clients count toward your contact limit. A row whose client would take you past it isn't imported, and the preview says which rows those are.

Space clashes

The import holds bookings to the same double-booking rule as the booking form. A Tentative, Confirmed or Completed booking can't overlap another one in the same Space, or any booking at the same time when it has no Space. A row that would clash with one of your bookings, your blocked time, or an earlier row of the file isn't imported, and the preview names what it clashes with.

The usual cause is a room name left on No Space: every booking without a Space clashes with any other booking at the same time. Match the room to its Space and the clash goes. A Space set up for several bookings at once (with Zones) lets bookings in different Zones overlap, as it does everywhere else.

Lead and Cancelled bookings never clash.

Importing the same file again

A row is skipped as already here when:

it has a booking reference, and one of your bookings already has that reference, or
one of your bookings has the same name and starts the same day. For a row with a reference, this only counts a booking that has no reference of its own, such as one you added by hand, so two bookings from your old system that share a name and a day both come across.

A booking you've since turned into a portal keeps its reference, so its row is skipped too.

The file is checked against itself the same way, so a row repeating an earlier one is skipped too.

So it is safe to import an updated export from your old system: what came across last time is skipped and only the new bookings are added. Map the booking reference column whenever your file has one. It is the reliable way to recognise a booking, and two different bookings can share a name and a day.

An import never changes a booking that is already in 1pm.

Saving your choices

If you'll import from the same place again, give your choices a name in Save these choices before you click Import. The columns, the statuses, the room-to-Space matches and the whole-file status and Space are all saved. The next time you upload a file with the same columns, 1pm picks that mapping for you. You can delete saved mappings on the import page.

Undoing an import

An import can be undone for 7 days, from the results card straight after importing or from Recent imports on the import page.

Bookings the import created are deleted, unless something has happened to them since: they've been saved, or had a run of show item, crew, a quote, an invoice, a file, an email or anything else added. Those are kept, and the message after the undo says how many.
Client contacts the import created are deleted too, unless they're still on a booking or have been used or edited since.

An import can be undone once.

Limits

A standard 1pm account holds up to 3,000 bookings and 3,000 contacts. Rows past either limit aren't imported, and the preview shows which ones before you import. If you need more, that's a contact-us conversation.

A file can be up to 1 MB with up to 100 columns. That is several thousand bookings for a typical export. Split a bigger file in two.

Common gotchas

The first row must be headers. If your file starts with a booking instead of column names, every column is matched wrongly.
Columns are separated by commas. A file saved with semicolons or tabs between columns is refused with a message saying which. Save it as comma-separated (CSV) and upload it again.
Check the dates as read. If the Date as read column shows the wrong month, change Dates are written above it.
A booking with no Space clashes with everything at the same time. Match your room names to Spaces before importing a busy calendar.
Accented names come through either way. Excel's "CSV UTF-8" and its standard "CSV (Comma delimited)" both import with letters like é and ü intact.

Importing contacts from a CSV, for your supplier and client lists on their own.
Importing bookings from a calendar, when your bookings live in Google, Outlook or Apple Calendar rather than a booking system.