How to Bulk Import Employees

Getting Started

1. Go to Settings > Bulk Upload.
2. Click the Bulk Employee Upload button.
3. You'll be taken through a guided 4-step wizard.

Step 1: Upload Your File

• Drag and drop your file into the upload area, or click Browse Files to select it.
• Supported formats: CSV, XLSX
• Maximum file size: 10 MB
• Maximum rows: 10,000

Download Options

• Download Import Template — downloads a blank CSV pre-formatted with all supported columns. Great for starting a fresh import.
• Download Current Employees — downloads a CSV of your existing employees, pre-filled with their current data. Use this to review or bulk-update employee details: make your changes in the file and re-upload it.

File Preview

• Once uploaded, you'll see a Data Preview showing the first few rows so you can confirm the right file was selected.
• To start over, click the X button next to the file name to remove it.

Step 2: Map Your Columns

Match the columns from your file to Timecloud employee fields.

• Click Auto-Detect to let the system automatically match columns based on common naming patterns.
• Use the dropdown menus to manually assign or adjust any column mapping.
• Click Clear All to reset all mappings and start fresh.

Required Fields

Optional Fields

You can also import these additional fields:

• Middle Name, Preferred Name
• Payroll Code, Custom Code 1, Custom Code 2, Custom ID
• Contract Type, Hourly Rate, Role, Status
• User Group Layer 1–3, Default Job Layer 1–2, Device Area
• Award, Employee Type, Award Base Rate
• Gender, Ethnicity

A green check mark appears next to each successfully mapped field. Required fields that haven't been mapped will show a warning icon with a message listing the missing fields.

Note: If your file uses the older column names "Location Layer 1", "Location Layer 2", or "Location Layer 3", they will still be recognised automatically.

Step 3: Preview and Validate

Before importing, the wizard validates your data and shows a summary:

• Total Records — how many rows are in your file
• To Create — new employees that will be added
• To Update — existing employees (matched by email) that will be updated
• Invalid — records with errors that will be skipped

Reviewing Records

• Use the Valid Records and Invalid Records tabs to review each group.
• Invalid records show the specific error for each row so you can fix them.
• Click Export Invalid Records to download just the problem rows, fix them in your spreadsheet, and re-upload.

When you're ready, click Start Import (or Import X Valid Records if some records are invalid).

Step 4: Import Progress and Results

• A progress bar tracks the import in real time, showing records processed, created, updated, and failed.
• Once complete, you'll see a results summary:
  • Created — newly added employees
  • Updated — existing employees that were modified
  • Failed — records that couldn't be processed (with error details)
• Expand the Created Employees or Updated Employees sections to see the full list.
• If any records failed, click Export Failed Records to download them for review.
• Click Done to finish, or Import More to start another upload.

Assigning Multiple Departments

You can assign an employee to more than one department in a single row by separating department names with a semicolon (;) inside any User Group Layer column.

How It Works

• Place multiple department names in the same layer column, separated by ;. For example:
  • User Group Layer 1: Head Office;Branch Office
  • User Group Layer 2: IT Department;HR Department
• Deeper layers only narrow the branches they name. If you list two departments at Layer 1 but only specify a sub-department for one of them, the other Layer 1 department is kept as-is.

Example

Good to Know

• Every department name in the semicolon list must be a valid department at that layer — if any name is not found, the entire row is flagged as invalid.
• Empty names between semicolons (e.g. IT Department;;HR Department) are treated as errors.
• Spaces around the semicolon are ignored, so IT Department ; HR Department works the same as IT Department;HR Department.

Nested Departments in Exports

When you use Download Current Employees, the User Group Layer columns reflect the full department hierarchy — even for employees assigned to nested sub-departments.

• If an employee is assigned to a child department (e.g. "Team A" inside "Operations > Field Team"), the export fills in all parent layers automatically: Layer 1 = "Operations", Layer 2 = "Field Team", Layer 3 = "Team A".
• This also applies to the Department column in the Employee Report — it always shows the top-level department name, regardless of where in the hierarchy the employee is assigned.

Tips

• Download and edit: Use Download Current Employees to export your current roster, make bulk changes in the spreadsheet, then re-upload the file to apply updates across the board.
• Email matching: The system uses the email address to check for existing employees. If an email matches, that employee's record will be updated rather than duplicated.
• Fix and re-upload: You don't need to re-upload your entire file. Export just the invalid or failed records, fix the issues, and upload only those rows.
• Column naming: The auto-detect feature recognises common naming patterns (e.g., "First Name", "FirstName", "first_name"), so you usually won't need to map columns manually.
• File size: Keep your file under 10 MB and 10,000 rows. For very large imports, consider splitting into multiple files.
• Nested departments: When downloading employees, User Group Layers are populated from top to bottom — so a deeply nested assignment still shows the correct parent departments in each layer.
• Multiple departments: Use a semicolon (;) to assign an employee to more than one department in a single layer — no need to create separate rows.