Import Officials Help Guide

Back

Instead of manually typing in each of your officials, the Import Officials feature allows you to quickly add all of your officials into the system at once.
  1. Download the Sample CSV file - This will be your starting point for entering the information. Click the "Download Sample CSV" button and open the "sample_officials.csv" file or save it to your computer.
  2. Open the CSV File - The CSV (Comma-Separated Value) file is similar to a spreadsheet and can be edited using Microsoft Excel. Once you have the file open, you will see that the top row contains all of the fields that can be defined for an official (except Eligible Sports).
  3. Enter the official's information - Now just enter all of the official's info into the spreadsheet with each official getting a single row in the file. A couple hints when entering information:
    • OfficialName is the only required field and it must be unique. If the Name is blank or it matches an existing official, that row will not be imported.
    • To make a new official Inactive, enter Y or Yes in the Inactive column.
    • Email should be a single valid email address. More than one email address can be entered in the Email2 column (if they are separated by a semi-colom ";").
    • PhoneType and PhoneType2 will accept values of Cell, Home or Work.
    • Rank must be a number (or else it will default to 1).
    • Notes is a free form text field. Enter whatever you wish.

    Note: The "Test McReferee" official in the Sample CSV is included stricly as an example of how to enter the data. This row will not be imported to your organization. You can leave it in the file or delete it, it doesn't matter.

  4. "Save As..." a CSV file - This is important! When you are done entering information, you must do a "Save As" and save the file as a CSV instead of a normal XLS file. The file types vary depending on which version of Excel you have, but the most common options are:
    MS Office 2010 CSV (MS-DOS)
    MS Office 2007 CSV (Comma delimited) (*.csv)
    MS Office 2003 CSV (Comma delimited) (*.csv)
    MS Office for Mac Windows Comma Separated (.csv)
    If you get prompted about "This file already exists. Do you want to replace the current file?" or "Do you want to keep the workbook in this format?", say yes to both questions.
  5. Upload the CSV file - Now it's time to get the officials in the system. On the Game Officials page in the Import Officials section, click the Browse button and choose the file that you just saved in the last step. Once the file is chosen, click the Import Officials button. You will then see a message at the top of the page with the results of the import process. If there were any errors displayed, you can fix them in the csv file and repeat the import process.

    Note: Any officials that were successfully imported the first time will show up as errors if you re-import. You can remove those successful officials from the CSV file or just ignore the errors.