Rather than add organizations one at a time, if you are using Support Team, Professional, or Enterprise, 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).
Bulk importing organizations cannot be undone. Before importing the CSV file that contains the information of all your organizations, test that same CSV file with a single organization record to make sure the upload performs the intended tasks.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
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. |
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. |
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 spaces. |
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 (
![]() 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.
|
Importing the CSV organization data file
You can import new organizations or update information for existing organizations.
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select People.
- Select Bulk Organization Import (located in the right column).
- Choose the type of import you want:
-
Create new organizations
-
Update existing organizations: Use this type of import to replace existing data for the organizations listed 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.
-
- Either click Choose File or the Let me paste in data instead link.
- Click Import.
Your import is added to the queue and the organizations are added to Zendesk Support when the import process is complete. This should take around an hour per file to complete, but it does depend on file size and queue size. See Limitations of bulk importing users and organizations. You'll receive an email when the import is complete.
57 Comments
There seems to be a broken link in this document: At the bottom, it states: See Limitations of bulk importing users and organizations. When I click on the link, I get an 'oops' page.
Hey Phil,
Sorry about that! The article has been updated.
Thanks!
Jessica
Just to confirm shouldn't the column default should be named domains? I was a little confused when importing orgs with domains.
Seem to take the domain list when I renamed the column from default to domains.
Hi Juan!
Quick clarification: are you saying that when you change that column name to "domains" everything still imports without a problem?
If that's the case, let me know and I'll have our Docs team update the article!
What about adding a sample CSV or Excel file for Organization Bulk importing?
hi i have tried to bulk update organisations with customer field but it does not update. i have used the field key in my import load sheet.
Hey @Nikki - Welcome to the Zendesk Community! Most often if an update doesn't work, it's because the .csv isn't properly formatted.
We suggest you start by checking the following things:
1. Be sure that there's a header row, which includes the name of each field
2. It has to include all of the required fields (specifically the name field)
3. Any of the fields listed have to be in the exact order of the table
4. If you're not importing data for a specific field, the field should be left off the sheet entirely
Double-check if all of those pieces are in place, and if they are and it still doesn't work, let us know.
When trying to update organizations (and not create new ones) how do you overcome the following error:
"Name: [ORGANIZATION NAME] has already been taken"
The name is supposed to match to update organizations, so why would it trigger an error?
Hey Justin!
As long as you have "Update existing organizations" checked on the Bulk organization import page you should not generally receive an error like this. Is it possible you have the same organization name included twice on the file you are updating?
I'll create a ticket so we can troubleshoot this further. Please keep an eye out in your email for that!
How could I update an organization if I need to modify the name?
Hey Alan!
You can actually change the name of an Organization from the agent interface. Just go to your admin menu (the gear icon on the left) and go to Manage > People > Organizations. Click on the Org you want to re-name, and from there, click on the name at the top of the page. A text box will a appear, and you can change the name from there:
Hi Guys, Is there a way to get an export of organisations in CSV? We want to do a bulk update of close 1500 organisations via export/import, however there only appears to be the ability to export an XML file.
Hi Sheldon!
Organization data can only be exported in XML format, so you'd need to convert it to CSV after you've finished exporting. I know there are some conversion tools online that will help you do this.
Otherwise, you can export the information using our API.
I find it very bizarre that you export organisations in XML, then only accept for them to be imported in CSV. One would think that you would have some consistency there and provide the export in the same format that needs to be imported.
Sheldon,
Yes, exactly.
Hey All,
Our service can help you to export organizations, contacts, tickets, whatever from Zendesk to CSV format.
Ping us here https://help-desk-migration.com
Is it possible to do a bulk import to change Organization names?
Hi Jeff!
This is an interesting question...I don't think this is something you'd be able to do using the methods outlined in this article; what you'd ultimately end up doing is adding a bunch of additional Orgs, and your users would be in both the old and the new Orgs.
It might be possible to do this using the API, though. I'd just say to be careful when making those kinds of changes. If you have any business rules or macros that involve Org names, changing a bunch of those names will break them. So make sure you do a complete audit of workflows that would be impacted by these changes.
FYI...When bulk importing organization tags, they must be separated by spaces, not commas as it states in the article.
"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."
Thanks, Frank! We've brought this to the documentation team's attention.
How would I bulk update the organisation names? Im having trouble working this out. I have got a CSV file with the column name of NAME and the original organisation names listed below. What would I put in the next column with the updated organisation names?
Thanks in advanced.
Hi Mike!
In this case you would have to know the external ID of the organizations that you are looking to update the name of in bulk. Since the easiest way to get the full list of external ID's on the organizations would be to use the API, it may be easiest to utilize our API to also update the organization names. This section of our API documentation discusses how to update organizations: https://developer.zendesk.com/rest_api/docs/core/organizations#updating-organizations
Hi, I find the "important" note on updating orgs a little confusing. If I include a record for an existing org (identified by external id or id) and have data is some fields but not others, what happens, exactly? For example, if I have data in the Id, Name, and Shared fields but not in the Tags field, will the existing tags in the org record in Zendesk be cleared or will they be left alone? In other words, are only the fields with data in the import csv updated in Zendesk, and others untouched, or all all fields in the org completely replaced with whatever is in the csv?
Hi Ed,
Thanks for your note!
Empty fields in the CSV import will overwrite any existing data in the system.
So, if you currently have data listed in the tags field but import the same organization with the tags field blank, the existing tags will be removed since the field in the CSV file is blank.
Please let us know if we can help with any other questions!
It's not what I was hoping hear, but thanks for the information.
We're trying to resync orgs with our Salesforce accounts, so I'm planning to use the spreadsheet to upload as opposed to writing a program to use the API. But we already have many of the orgs in Zendesk and have them all tagged and commented, I don't want to lose any of that. I'll have to export the orgs from Zendesk and merge it into the data from Salesforce and reimport.
Hi! I have noticed that you can change any org info with bulk importing. But there is one thing I don't get it. What field is the key indentifier of an org in the CSV-file?
I managed to change defaults (e.g. domains), external id and a name of an org without creating a new organisation.
I did those changes in a separated imports, not in a single one, but I'm still surprised, what may happen if I try to update several orgs with too smilar names or something?
Hello Hannes,
With Zendesk, the name of the Organization is unique and cannot be replicated across multiple orgs. That way, any changes are attributed to the unique org name and no other org is affected.
I'm a little confused with the custom_fields section and the syntax. My field key (business unit) has a drop down menu. Can you make it select a specific item from the drop down? If so what would the syntax be?
custom_fields.business_unit
Hi Jake,
If you're drop-down field key is business_unit you would use custom_fields.business_unit and then use the values specific tag to select the appropriate item from the drop-down menu.
Let me know if the above doesn't make sense.
Cheers!
That does make sense but I've just tried multiple formats and can't seem to get it to work from the import module.
EG: I have 3 different business units - support, operations, sales
If I want to select sales what syntax do I put into the excel sheet? I've tried the following to no avail.
custom_fields.business_unit-sales
custom_fields.business_unit=sales
custom_fields.business_unit_sales
custom_fields.business_unit sales
Apologies if I wasn't clear, I just don't know what goes after the custom_fields.business_unit part.
Thanks!!
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