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Importing Employees from a CSV File

If you already have a staff list in a spreadsheet, you can bring your whole team into BarSight at once instead of adding employees one at a time. The Import CSV tool on the Employee List reads a simple CSV file, shows you a preview of what it found, and then creates the employees, their roles, and their wages in a single step.

Before You Start

  • Your account must be on a paid plan. File uploads are not available on free accounts.
  • You need permission to add and edit employees. If you can see the Add Employee button on the Employee List, you have what you need.
  • Check your location's Default Access Group under Settings → Location. Every imported employee is placed in that group. See Access Control if you want to adjust it first.
  • Have your spreadsheet saved as a .csv file. Excel, Google Sheets, and Numbers can all export to CSV using File → Save As or File → Download.

Step 1: Prepare Your CSV File

The quickest way to get the format right is to start from our sample file. It includes hourly staff, a salaried manager, and employees who hold more than one role, so you can see every option in use.

employee_import_sample.csv Sample employee import file with hourly, salary, and multi-role examples
Download Sample

Open the sample in your spreadsheet program, replace the example rows with your own staff, and save it again as a CSV. Keep the first row exactly as it is. BarSight uses that header row to figure out which column is which.

Columns BarSight Recognizes

Column order does not matter, and you can leave out any column you do not need. Any column with a heading BarSight does not recognize is simply ignored. Headings are case sensitive, so type them exactly as shown below.

Column Heading Required? What to Enter
First Name Yes The employee's first name. First also works.
Last Name Yes The employee's last name. Last also works.
Email Recommended Needed if the employee will log in to BarSight or use the mobile app. Leave blank for staff who only need to appear on the schedule.
Phone No Any format. Mobile phone is also accepted as a heading.
Address No Street address.
City No City or town.
Province No Full name or code, for example British Columbia or BC. If BarSight does not recognize the value, your location's province is used.
Country No Full name or code, for example Canada or CA. Unrecognized values fall back to your location's country.
Postal No Postal or ZIP code.
Role Recommended The job title, for example Server. If the role does not exist yet, BarSight creates it for you. Roles also works as a heading.
Wage Recommended The hourly rate as a number, for example 18.50. Enter the word Salary (or any text) for salaried staff.

[SCREENSHOT: The sample CSV open in Excel with the header row highlighted and the quoted multi-role cells visible]

Employees With More Than One Role

To give an employee several roles in one go, list them in the Role cell separated by commas, and list the matching wages in the same order in the Wage cell. The number of roles must match the number of wages.

  • Role: Bartender, Server
  • Wage: 20.00, 17.25

Your spreadsheet program will automatically wrap these cells in quotation marks when it saves the CSV, which is exactly what BarSight expects. If the counts do not match, the employee is still created but their roles may be skipped or combined into a single, incorrectly named role, so double check these rows before uploading.

A Few Things to Leave Out

  • Leave out any Id column. BarSight matches existing staff by email address, and an Id column causes new hires to be flagged in the preview.
  • Do not include a header row more than once, and remove any blank rows or notes above the headings.
  • Employees with no first name and no last name are skipped.

Step 2: Upload the File

  1. Navigate to Crew → Employee List.
  2. Click Import CSV in the toolbar at the top of the page.
  3. In the Import Employees window, click CSV File and choose the file you prepared.
  4. Click Upload.

[SCREENSHOT: Employee List toolbar with the Import CSV button highlighted, and the Import Employees window open with the CSV File picker]

Step 3: Review the Preview

BarSight reads your file and shows a preview table before anything is saved. Take a moment to check it.

  • Column headings show the name BarSight matched them to. Any column it could not match shows -Unused- and will be ignored. If a column you expected to import says -Unused-, go back and fix the heading in your file.
  • Rows highlighted in green are employees who already exist in this account, matched by email address. Their details will be updated rather than duplicated.
  • Rows highlighted in red are email addresses that belong to a BarSight user at a different business. These rows are skipped during import. Hover over the row for details, and add those people manually using Add Employee instead.
  • All other rows are new employees that will be created.

[SCREENSHOT: Import preview table showing matched column headings, one -Unused- column, and a mix of new and highlighted rows]

If something looks wrong, simply close the window, correct your CSV, and upload it again. Nothing has been saved yet.

Step 4: Import

  1. Click Import into Database at the top of the preview.
  2. When the import finishes you are returned to the Employee List, where your new staff now appear.

For each new employee BarSight:

  • Creates the employee with a status of Active.
  • Places them in your location's Default Access Group.
  • Creates any roles that did not already exist, then assigns the employee to their role or roles with the wages you entered.
  • Sets up a login record, but does not send an invitation yet. Only employees with an email address can be invited.

Step 5: Invite Your Staff

Imported employees do not receive an email automatically. When you are ready for them to start using BarSight:

  1. On the Employee List, tick the checkbox next to each employee you want to invite.
  2. Click Setup / Reset Password in the toolbar.
  3. Each selected employee receives an email with a link to set their password and log in.

See Employee List for more on managing staff after they are in the system.

Tips and Best Practices

  • Start small. Try a file with two or three employees first. Once you are happy with the result, import the rest.
  • Create your roles first under Settings → Roles if you care about department, colour, or ordering. Roles created by the import get default settings that you can edit later.
  • Match spelling exactly. Line Cook and Line cook are treated as two different roles.
  • Email is the key. If you need to re-import the same file to fill in missing details later, BarSight matches on email and updates each employee with whatever is in the file. Blank cells leave the existing value alone, and wages are refreshed. No duplicates are created.
  • Review access groups afterwards. Everyone lands in the default group. Open any managers or shift leaders and move them to the right group. See Access Control.

Troubleshooting

Problem: The Import CSV button is missing.

Solution: You do not have permission to add employees. Ask your account owner to adjust your access group.

Problem: I see "You need to upgrade to a paid plan in order to upload files."

Solution: File uploads are only available on paid plans. Ask your account owner to upgrade, or add employees one at a time with Add Employee.

Problem: I see "Invalid CSV Upload file (0 rows found)".

Solution: The file was not a true CSV. Open it in your spreadsheet program and use Save As, choosing CSV (Comma delimited) as the type. Files saved as .xlsx, .numbers, or tab-separated text will not work.

Problem: A column shows -Unused- in the preview.

Solution: The heading does not match one BarSight recognizes. Compare it to the table above, watching for extra spaces, different capitalization, or extra words like "Employee Email".

Problem: An employee was created but has no role or wage.

Solution: Usually the Role and Wage cells have a different number of comma-separated entries. Open the employee from the Employee List and add the role by hand, or fix the row and re-import. See Add Multiple Roles and Wages for an Employee.

Problem: A row is red and was skipped.

Solution: That email address is already registered with BarSight at another business. Add the person with Add Employee and they will be linked to their existing login.

Problem: Province or country came through wrong.

Solution: BarSight could not recognize the value and used your location's defaults. Use the full name or the standard two-letter code and re-import, or correct the employee's profile directly.

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