DEPARTMENTS: Adding/Editing Departments via CSV Import

Tiffany Winters

Modified on: Tue, May 6, 2025 at 1:18 PM

Table of Contents

Overview

You can add or edit departments in bulk via a CSV import.
You can use this for any bulk changes to departments data, whether it’s for your initial product implementation or at any point thereafter when you wish to add or update departments in bulk.

Step 1: Navigate to Product > Settings > Departments.

Step 2: Click “Import Departments”.

Step 3: At this point, you can do one of two things, but the first is what’s recommended:

Click “data” to download the template with existing department data already included.

Click “template” to download a blank CSV template to start from scratch.
1. This route will take you to a Google Sheet.
2. Download by going to File > Download and then choosing .csv as your file format.

Step 4:

Add new departments to the template and/or update department details as necessary.
You might want to adjust column width to make it easier to see column headers and the information you’re inputting, just note that the width will not save in CSV format (and CSV format is required for the import).
You can input more than one value in the “Subject Codes” and “Workflow Participants”, and “Roles” columns.
Separate multiple values with a comma only (no extra space), e.g. “BUS,ACCT”.
If you need to separate values with something other than a comma, you can do that, but you’ll want to make sure it’s accounted for in Step 10 below.

Step 5:

Save your CSV to an easy-to-find location on your computer.
Note that your file must be in CSV format – if you save the template in another file format (e.g. XLS), it will not show up in the file select.

Step 6: Return to the “Import Departments” modal.

Step 7: Click “File to upload” and select your Departments CSV file.

Step 8 (Optional):

Step 9: Click “Upload File”.

Step 10:

In the “Data Mapping” screen, ensure there is a green checkmark with “Mapped” next to each field.
CSV columns are auto-mapped to the corresponding Coursedog fields based on the CSV column header, but if you have changed it you can adjust the mapping manually at this stage.
If you only want the import tool to import after a certain row in your CSV, you can set that via the “Start at row” setting.
This is useful if you have imported departments previously and are simply adding new departments.
If, for example, you already have 23 departments, your original CSV had 24 columns (including the header). If you’re adding 12 more departments, they would be rows 25-36. So, you could set “Start at row” to “25” to skip rows 2-24 and only import rows 25-36.
The import tool automatically assumes values are separated by a comma.
If you’re using commas as part of a value and separating values with something other than a comma, input what you’re using to separate values in the delimiter column(s).
If you wish to not import certain data, click the X next to the Coursedog Field. This will remove the Coursedog field, and prevent the field from being mapped.

Step 11: Click “Submit”.

Step 12:

Check the “Parsing Details” screen.
If there aren’t any errors, click “Import Departments” to proceed.
If there are validation errors, fix the CSV file and re-import.
- Errors will appear at this step if user details cannot be found or mapped in Coursedog, or you add Departments that don't exist.

Step 13:

Check the “Summary” screen for errors.
- If there are errors, contact Coursedog support; be sure to include the identifier.
If there aren’t any errors, congratulations! Your import was completed successfully.
- Click “Done” to exit out of the modal.
- Refresh the page to see changes reflected.

This will show you a list of all past uploads, which you can organize in ascending or descending order by using the up and down arrows.
Click “Summary” to see the Results and Import Summary of that upload.
Click “Download” to view the corresponding JSON file.

If the CSV file is exported from Coursedog; changed; and imported again without changes to the Department ID – which is used as a unique ID in Coursedog – then the departments will be updated.
- If, however, the Department ID is changed or no Department ID is provided, new departments will be created.
Departments cannot be deleted via the CSV import – only added, updated, or deactivated.
- If you remove a department from a CSV, and then conduct a new import, it will not be removed.
- Similarly, if you have departments already added to your UI and use the template to create new ones, we would merge the existing departments with the new ones.
- This is to ensure no departments are accidentally deleted.
If you are uploading multiple department chairs to one department, you’ll need to repeat the row with the department information with the new chair information in each row.