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Importing Tags with CSV files

Submitted Apr 07 by Michael Biolsi

One of the benefits of importing CSV (Comma Separated Value) data is that you have the ability to grab a LOT of data! However, once it is in stafftool you will want/need to sort it and group it. Tags are the tool you want - but adding tags to a bunch of records can be a lot of work, and frustrating if you already have that data stored somewhere.

One of the import fields for CSV files is the TAGS field. Simple create a column in your CSV data file and call it "tags' then add whatever you want and when it comes in to stafftool it will appear in the tags field of each record.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

  1. you can add as many tags as you want
  2. all of your tags must be in one field - you cannot have 3 tag fields but you can have 1 tag field with 3 tags in it for each record
  3. tags must be separated by a space for proper import
  4. if a tag has more than one word, use quotes to make sure the words stay grouped together
I had a large group of records from an Access database that I needed to import. By editing the CSV file in Excel (or other spreadsheet app) I was able to take a bunch of information (like regions, affinity groups, membership status, etc) and merge them into one field and then import them as tags for individuals. 10 minutes of work in Excel, a few minutes to import the CSV file and instantly I was able to setup smart groups.

 

Comments

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Toby Sterrett
Stafftool Support

Great advice Mike. One thing to clear up - tags are actually separated by commas, not spaces, so go ahead and have your tags be as natural as you need and just separate them with commas and you should be good to go!

Apr-07 2008 at 22:03.
 
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Michael Biolsi
TOBY... in stafftool they are separated by commas, in the CSV file they cannot be. I tried that, but a CSV (comma) file will not like it if you put commas in the data. It freaks! However, using spaces and quotes it took every tag I added to the field. That is the reason I added this note... Adding commas to a comma separated file will be the equivalent of adding extra data fields/records.
Apr-08 2008 at 05:24.
 
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Toby Sterrett
Stafftool Support
Oh man, you're right - comma separated values and all...Hmm, need to get that figured out...thanks for alerting me to that Mike! I'm wondering...I'm pretty sure the way CSV works is that if you put quotes around the whole field, you can have commas within it...for example, your tags field in your CSV file could be "tag one, tag two, tag three" - I'm pretty sure that if you have your info in Excel or something and have comma separated info in a cell, when you export to CSV it will automatically quote them for you?
Apr-08 2008 at 14:34.
 
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Michael Biolsi

When I imported the data I simply added a bunch of tags in the one field separated by a space. If the tag was more than one word I used quotes. When it was all said and done, all of the tags came in with commas in the people records. Not sure how... but it worked!

For instance, one church had the following tags: chinese spanish english "greater nyc"

When you look at the person's record you see Tags: chinese, spanish, english, greater nyc

I am not sure what Excel does by default. It would be interesting to find out!

Apr-08 2008 at 15:47.
 
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Toby Sterrett
Stafftool Support
Heh, well hey, whatever works :) I'll do some experiments and see if there's any way that's a bit better or not, but if that works that's great.
Apr-08 2008 at 21:02.
 
 
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