Importing crew from csv

If you've already got a list of your vendors and crew somewhere (a spreadsheet, an old CRM export, a Google Sheet you keep on the desktop), you can import the whole lot into 1pm in one go instead of typing them in one by one. This article covers the CSV import flow, the file format, what gets skipped, and how to handle the common gotchas.

Where to find it

In 1pm, go to the Crew page (the top navigation link). At the top right of the list, next to the New crew button, there's an Import button that takes you to the CSV import page at /Crew/Import.

The page shows three things: how many more crew members will fit before you hit the per-account cap, a Download template button, and a file upload form.

Get the template first

Click Download template. You'll get a small CSV file with the column headers 1pm expects, plus a couple of example rows. Open it in Excel, Numbers, Google Sheets, or any plain text editor.

Working from the template is the easiest way to get the format right. Add your crew under the example rows, delete the examples, and save the file.

You can also build the CSV from scratch if you'd rather. The first row must be a header row with the column names below, and column order doesn't matter. Names are case-insensitive, so ContactName, contactname, and CONTACT_NAME (well, ContactName, but you get the idea) all work.

The columns

FirstName, Required. Up to 100 characters each.

Surname, Optional. Up to 100 characters each.

ContactName. Optional. The crew or vendor's business, company, organisation or group name. Up to 200 characters. For a vendor it's usually the company name (Sue's Catering, Aurora Lights).

Email. Optional. Standard email format. If a row's email matches one that already exists in your Crew list, the row is skipped (more on this below).

Mobile. Optional. Free-text phone number, formatted however you like.

Website. Optional. The vendor's URL.

InternalNotes. Optional. Up to 3,000 characters. Notes that only you see. Crew don't see this on their live link. Useful for "Always books late", "Preferred for ballroom events", "Backup contact: Pat at 0412...".

Rating. Optional. A number from 0 to 5. 0 means no rating, 1 through 5 are stars. Lets you flag your A-tier crew.

Tags. Optional. Semicolon-separated within the cell. Example value: Caterer;Preferred;VIP. Tags are how you organize crew on the Crew page (filter by tag, find all the caterers, find everyone tagged Preferred).

Uploading

Once your CSV is ready, click Choose File on the import page, pick the file, then click Import crew.

The maximum file size is 1 MB. That's roughly several thousand rows of contact data, which is far more than the account cap, so the file size limit is almost never the thing that bites first.

What happens with duplicates

If you import a CSV and one of the rows has an email that already matches a crew member you've added, that row is skipped silently. The import doesn't overwrite the existing record, doesn't ask you what to do, doesn't error: it just leaves the existing crew member untouched and moves on.

This means it's safe to re-import the same CSV. Old rows are skipped, new ones (with new emails or no email at all) are added.

The skip-by-email behaviour also means rows without an email address won't be deduplicated. If you import the same crew member twice and neither row has an email, you'll get two records. Add emails to your CSV before importing if you care about uniqueness.

Per-account cap

A standard 1pm account has a cap of 1,000 crew members. The import page shows you how many more will fit before you hit the cap, and the Import button disables when you've hit it.

If your import would push you past the cap, the rows that fit are imported and the rest are reported in the results. You can delete some crew you don't need anymore and re-import the rejected rows if you want them.

For most planners, 1,000 crew is more than enough. If you actually need more, the limit lift is a contact-us conversation and we'll sort it out.

The import results

After the file uploads, you'll see a results card with a few counts:

• How many crew members were imported.

• How many were skipped because their email already exists.

• How many were skipped because of the per-account cap.

• How many rows had errors and weren't imported.

If any rows had errors, you can expand the View errors section to see the specific line numbers and what went wrong. Typical errors are things like a row with a missing ContactName, a Rating value outside 0 to 5, or a field that's too long.

The error report tells you the line number in the file so you can fix the original CSV and either re-import the whole thing (duplicates will be skipped) or just fix the broken rows and re-import that subset.

Common gotchas

The first row must be headers. If your file starts with data instead of column names, every row will be misinterpreted.

ContactName must be filled in. Rows with an empty ContactName cell are reported as errors.

Tags use semicolons, not commas. Commas separate columns in the CSV; semicolons separate tags within the Tags cell.

Smart quotes don't cause problems most of the time, but if a row gets unexpectedly rejected, opening the CSV in a plain text editor and saving as UTF-8 usually fixes it.

If you export from Excel and a column with leading zeros (like a phone number) drops the zero, format the column as text before saving.

When CSV import isn't the right tool

If you're adding one or two crew members, the New crew button on the Crew page is faster than building a CSV. If you're migrating an existing list from another tool, CSV import is the path of least resistance: export from there, tidy the columns to match the names above, and one upload later you're done.

The fields covered by import are the standard contact set. Anything more specific (custom roles, event-specific notes, request responses) belongs on the individual event or on the crew member's profile after import.