Bulk importing organizations

Rather than add organizations one at a time, you can bulk add several organizations by importing a CSV (comma separated values) file. You can use bulk import to add organizations or update organizations. You must be an administrator to bulk import organizations. You can add or update several users at once (see Bulk importing users).

Note: If you would like to bulk import both organizations and users, you must bulk import organizations first. For information on bulk importing users, see Bulk importing users. 

 

This article contains the following sections:

• Limitations of bulk importing users and organizations
• Creating the CSV organization data file
• Importing the CSV organization data file

Limitations of bulk importing users and organizations

You can import a core set of data about users and organizations. For example, using bulk import, you can import the data described in the table below; however, you cannot import timezones, photos, language preferences, etc. To import data not listed in the table below, you need to use the Zendesk REST API instead. See Importing users with the Zendesk API or Importing organizations with the Zendesk API.

There are also the following limitations to bulk importing:

• The import CSV data file must contain no more than 2000 rows of data (one row for the header and the rest for the user or organization data).
• You can only import one CSV file of 2000 or less rows of data at a time. Therefore, if you've got more than 1999 users or organizations to import, you need to create separate files for each batch and import them one after another. Up to two batches are queued and run in the background. If you want import more than two batches, you need to wait until the first batches are finished importing to add more.
• You cannot use bulk importing to import contact information from end-user Facebook or Twitter accounts. Instead, use the Zendesk REST API. See Importing users with the Zendesk API.

Creating the CSV organization data file

To bulk import organizations, you will use a CSV organization data file. This section will discuss how to set up your CSV data file.

Here are some important things to keep in mind when creating your file:

• The file must be properly formatted CSV and saved using UTF-8 character encoding.
• The first row of the CSV file is the header row, and you must include it in the file.
• The header row must contain any required fields in the table below, plus any other fields listed in the table below that you want to include.
• Included fields must appear in the header row in the order they are listed below.
• If you are not importing data for a field, do not list it in the header row.
• Empty columns of data in the file will overwrite any existing data for that user.
• Add line breaks to notes or multiline custom fields by pressing ALT+ENTER on Windows or CTRL+OPTION+RETURN on a Mac.

Note: Microsoft Excel cannot save your file directly. To save your file, upload it to Google Sheets, re-download it, and then upload to Zendesk. You can also use Open Office to save the file.

The following table lists the fields that you can include in the file.

Table 1. Organization import data

Field	Description
name	Required. The organization name.
external_id	If you have a uniquely identifying ID, other than the organization's name, you can include it here.
notes	Notes about the organization. Notes are visible to agents only, not to end-users.
details	Detailed information about the organization, such as the address. This information is visible to agents only, not to end-users.
default	This is for mapping users to an organization. Enter one or more email domains, separated with spaces. See Automatically adding users to organizations based on their email domain.
shared	True or False. Sets the organization as a shared organization. See Setting up a shared organization for end-users.
shared_comments	True or False. Allows all users in the organization to add comments to each other's tickets. The shared field must also be set to true. See Setting up a shared organization for end-users.
group	Enter a default group for the organization. See Mapping a group to an organization.
tags	When user and organization tagging has been enabled for Zendesk Support (see Adding tags and users to organizations), you can add tags to the organization. Separate each tag with the comma.
custom_fields.<field key>	When you perform a bulk organization import, you can import a custom organization field by specifying the custom_fields. prefix and the field key.  For example, for the field key subscription_date, use the following to set the imported values for this field. custom_fields.subscription_date Note: To locate the key for a custom org field, click the Admin icon () and select Organization Fields, then click the name of a custom field. The field key appears in the properties panel on the right. If a field value is not formatted correctly, the import will fail and you will receive an error report specifying which records failed to save. For custom date fields, use either the YY/MM/DD or YYYY-MM-DD format. Important: To set the value of drop-down list options, use the tag you added when you created the drop-down list. See Adding custom fields to organizations.

Importing the CSV organization data file

You can import new organizations or update information for existing organizations.

To import the CSV organization data

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select People.
2. Select Bulk Organization Import (located in the right column).
3. Choose the type of import you want:
   • Create new organizations
   • Update existing organizations
     Important: Update actually means replace. In other words, if you select Update existing organizations, it replaces the existing data for the listed organizations in your CSV file. You only need to include the fields that you want to update in the file. If you have empty columns of data it will overwrite the existing data for that organization.
4. Either click Choose File or the Let me paste in data instead link.
5. Click Import.

Your import is added to the queue and the organizations are added to Zendesk Support when the import process is complete. See Limitations of bulk importing users and organizations. You'll receive an email when the import is complete.