Importing employees into Staff - Knowledge Base Office Maker / BiblioMaker

When you start using Staff software, one of the first operations is to enter the contact details of the company's employees. This can be done manually, but if you already have a list of employees, an import of this data will come in handy, especially if the number of employees exceeds ten.

Staff offers several predefined import formats, but these are complex due to the vast amount of information contained in an employee's file. We therefore recommend that you import the "basic" data (surname, first name, postal address, e-mail, telephone number, etc.) and then complete the imported files with the information required to calculate salaries in Staff software. It should be noted that each employee must be assigned a unique identification code (numbers or letters, or a mixture of the two), to be created if necessary. In addition, the social security number is mandatory information for import.

1. The import file is usually prepared in a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel or LibreOffice Calc. Each item must be placed in a separate column of the spreadsheet. The structure of the columns must correspond to the fields in the Staff employee file (for example, the employee's first and last name must be placed in separate columns). The order of the columns plays no role at this stage.
2. Once the file has been prepared in the spreadsheet, save it preferably in text format, with a tab mark as a separator between columns. This is because Staff is unable to interpret a native Excel or LibreOffice Calc file.
3. The next step is to prepare the import format in Staff: in the Employees file, call up the File>Import command and click on the Create button (available in Standard and PRO versions).
4. In the import format creation dialog, select the data format (CSV or TXT, depending on the format chosen in step 2). Set basic parameters using the Settings button. In the Available fields area, select the fields for which you have defined the columns in the spreadsheet and move them to the Import order area using the Add button. The order of the fields must correspond exactly to the order of the columns in the spreadsheet. Our suggestion: limit yourself to the essential fields displayed in the Address details tab of the Employees file. You will then be able to complete the imported employee files directly in the software.
5. Validate the import format definition and give a name to the new format, which is then added to the list of available import formats.
6. To import the data, select this import format, define the character encoding in the format options, then import the file saved in step 2. If the definition of your import format does not correspond to the file prepared in the spreadsheet, you can either modify the import format or adapt the file in the spreadsheet, then restart the import. Warning: in the event of an import error, your data file may be "polluted" by values imported in the wrong fields. In this case, it may be preferable to start from a blank data file, as simply deleting erroneous employee records will not always eliminate unwanted values.

The import format created for the occasion is memorized by the program and can be reused as many times as necessary.

Notice

If the employee record code already exists in the database, Staff checks that the social security number is identical between the record to be imported and the existing record. If the code and social security number are identical, the existing employee record is updated with the record to be imported. If the social security number is different, the employee record is not imported.