Importing Users from CSV Files
You can copy users from an external directory or user base into Crowd via a CSV (comma-separated values) file. There are two phases involved:
- Export your existing users and their group memberships from your external directory into a CSV file or files.
- Import the users, groups and group memberships into a Crowd directory from the CSV files.
The CSV importer is available with Crowd 1.1.1 and later.
How the CSV Importer Handles Data
The CSV Importer adds to the Crowd directory, but does not update or delete existing information:
- If the Username already exists in Crowd, the CSV Importer does not overwrite the information for that user even if the Username exists in the CSV file with different user information.
- The CSV Importer does not remove users from Crowd.
- If your 'Group Membership' CSV file contains additional group(s) for a user, the additional group(s) and group membership(s) will be imported.
- Existing group memberships will not be changed or removed.
Preparing your CSV Files
You will need:
- a CSV file containing user information, and
- optionally, another CSV file containing group memberships.
Attached are simple examples of the CSV files:
The CSV Importer's 'File Mappings' screen allows you to match the CSV fields to Crowd's User and Group fields.
Formatting and location of the CSV files:
Requirement | Description |
|---|---|
Location | The CSV files must be on the local drive (e.g. C:) of the Crowd server. |
Supported attributes | The CSV Importer does not support custom attributes. The supported attributes are shown in the drop-down lists on the 'File Mappings' screen. |
Header row | The first row in each CSV file must be a header row. The CSV Importer will not import the information in the first row. The information in the first row is displayed in the column labeled 'CSV Header Row' on the 'File Mappings' screen |
Delimiter | The fields in the CSV file must be separated by a single-character delimiter. The CSV Importer's 'Configuration' screen lets you tell Crowd which delimiter you have used. |
Passwords | You will need to decide whether to import your passwords into Crowd. And if you do import the passwords, you must choose to import them as either encrypted or clear text. |
Check the password encryption in the directory you are exporting users from, and compare it with the encryption method of the Crowd directory you want to import the users into. You can use Crowd's To export information from your user directory into a CSV file:
- Export the users from your external user directory or database into a CSV file. Your directory or user base should have an option to allow you to do this.
- If you want to copy your existing group memberships into Crowd, export the groups and group memberships into another CSV file.
Importing the CSV Files into Crowd
Once you have prepared your CSV file(s), you can import the users and groups into a Crowd directory.
To import users and groups from CSV files:
- Log in to the Crowd Administration Console.
- Click the 'Users' link in the top navigation bar.
- This will display the User Browser. Click the 'Import Users' link.
- This will display the 'Import Type' screen. Click the 'CSV Importer' button.
- This will display the 'Configuration' tab of the 'CSV Importer'.
- Enter the details of the CSV files as described in 'Configuring the CSV Importer'.