What can I learn from this page? | Learn how to import your employee data via HRIS integration or manual upload. Get steps for full and partial imports & troubleshooting tips. |
Who is this guide for? | Account Admins |
📌 Note: If you plan to use or are already using either 1-on-1 conversations or if you are a Performance customer, follow these steps after uploading your employee data file to the platform:
Start a Support Conversation.
Reply with "Ask a Person" to connect directly with a Product Support Specialist.
Request the specialist to map your performance demographics, such as Manager Email, Department, and Job Title.
Our support team will perform a one-time mapping process to ensure your demographic data populates correctly in the Performance side of the platform or 1-on-1 conversation tool.
Additional Notes:
For Performance customers, additional demographic fields such as Job Title Level, Gender, Location, Business Unit, Division, Country, and Employment Type can also be mapped. Consider including these in your upload file.
Job Title and Job Title Level are interconnected. To display a user's Level in Performance, their Job Title must first be mapped.
Choose your import method
To unlock important insights into your organization’s culture and employees’ performance using Culture Amp, you’ll need to provide your employees’ names, email addresses, manager information, and demographic details. This data will likely change over time as you use more of the platform, so it’s important to learn how to upload this data and keep it up to date.
HRIS Integration
If you manage your employee data in an HRIS we support integrations for, we recommend an integration as it allows you to import your data automatically and set up a daily sync. Integrations are available for a wide variety of HRIS: we offer native integrations for BambooHR, Namely, Workday, Personio, HiBob, Gusto and Dayforce (formerly Ceridian), and integrations via SFTP for many others, including ADP, UltiPro, SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle PeopleSoft and Cornerstone.
Learn how to integrate Culture Amp to your HRIS
Depending on the HRIS integration you use, the user data will be updated using our Partial or Full Import Process. If you have an SFTP integration, data will be updated using our Partial Import Process.
Full import: most of our native (API) integration options use the full import process, which means active users in Culture Amp will be deactivated if they are not included in the file/report being synced from your HRIS. Only users included in the sync will remain active in Culture Amp.
Partial import: SFTP integrations and some native (API) integration options use the partial import process, which means active users in Culture Amp will remain active if they are not included in the file/report being imported from your HRIS. If you need to deactivate someone in Culture Amp, make sure you include them in the import with an End Date value assigned.
More information about the difference between these two processes is further down in this article.
Manual Upload
If you will be manually uploading your employee data, you’ll create a spreadsheet file of your employee information and demographics.
When you upload your file, you will have two import options:
Full import: when you upload a data file that contains complete information about all of your employees. Employees not included in your data file will become inactive in Culture Amp classified as former employees with their End Date set to the import date. To mark users inactive as deactivated employees instead, check out the guidance below.
Partial import: when you upload a data file that contains new or updated information for a subset of your employees. Your employees’ demographics will only change if they are included in your data file. Employees not in your data file will remain active.
Learn more about the difference between partial or full imports when updating employee data and how to create your employee data file.
Import Your Data Process
Whether you’re using an HRIS integration or a manual upload, we will guide you through everything you need to know about importing your data into Culture Amp on a single screen. Our platform will process your data, display a summary of any changes, and allow you to confirm that your data is accurate before the import is processed.
Click Settings > Users
Click Import & Export > Import
If using an HRIS integration, scroll down to sync data from your HRIS. If you are doing a manual upload, select full or partial import and upload a CSV or XLSX file.
Click Next to import and validate your data.
Click Next once the progress bar has completed on the Validation page.
If you are adding a hierarchy, you’ll see the hierarchy tab next. Select your Manager Identifier (typically Manager Email) and click Next. Alternatively, turn off the hierarchy for now with the toggle button, and click Next. The system will validate your data once more.
Review the import summary (more information on this below). Click Import data if you are satisfied with the summary.
Your data will now begin to be processed and applied to your account. You can navigate to other parts of the platform or log off and the changes will still be applied.
📌 Note: We don't automatically send emails to employees to let them know they've been added to the platform.
Reviewing Import Details
You can dive deeper into your data upload by either clicking the Show details link or selecting one of the icons in the Summary of imported data dashboard.
Hierarchy Errors
📌 Note: this section will only be visible if you have enabled a hierarchy within Culture Amp. Read more about adding a hierarchy
This section shows any errors that prevent Culture Amp from building a valid hierarchy from your data.
You’ll need to correct these errors in your source data and re-import in order to proceed. Learn more about how to correct errors with hierarchy validation
Ignored Data
This section highlights any employees with improperly formatted demographic data. Any employee that appears in this section will not be updated once you process the upload/import. Don't worry, though, these ignored users will not prevent the rest of the upload/import from being successfully applied to your account.
Users are grouped by issue type. Troublesome data fields are highlighted in yellow so you can quickly identify the underlying problem, resolve it in your source file/HRIS, and re-upload/import.
If you experience a "Duplicate email" warning, please check your user list in the platform for emails and/or employee IDs that may have been deactivated. Emails and Employee IDs must be unique. If these already exist in an inactive state, you may want to activate that employee instead of creating a new profile. If an error persists, please contact support for further assistance.
Demographics
This section provides a summary of the demographics found in your upload/import (e.g. Location). Make sure that every demographic you included in your data file appears here.
Added/Removed/Update Users
These three sections list the total number of users that will be added to, deactivated (or removed) from, or updated in your account as a result of an upload/import. New or updated demographic values are highlighted in green so you can quickly see what data will change as a result of an upload.
FAQs
How can I deactivate employees when manually importing my employee data?
To make users inactive as "deactivated employees" through manual user import:
Export your employee data file from the Settings > Users page.
Remove end date values for the records you want to move to your deactivated list.
Ensure that the Employee Deactivated column is included in the file, with TRUE set as the value next to each person you want to mark as "deactivated." Make sure FALSE is set for any other employees. Note: This column won't show in the platform but will be visible in your exports automatically.
Re-import the file via a full import.
💬 Need help? Just reply with "Ask a Person" in a Support Conversation to speak with a Product Support Specialist.