Import Ideas

You must use the pre-filled headers from the template and save your file as a Comma Separated Values (.csv).

• title*: Must be unique within your account, and is case insensitive (up to 140 characters).

• body: Description of the idea and will be visible on the forum (up to 10,000 characters).

• created_timestamp: Format: 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z (for UTC), 2016-01-01T00:00:00-08:00 (for PST). If the timestamp is left blank, we will use the time of the import process. 

• forum.name*: You must create the forum in UserVoice prior to importing. 

• category.name: You must create the category in UserVoice before importing the idea.

• created_by_user.name: Will be the voter’s display name if they are new but will not overwrite an existing user profile.
• created_by_user.email_address: If left blank, the idea will be attributed to the admin who ran the import. This cannot be changed after the fact. Note: the creator is not counted as a supporter on the idea.
  
  
• created_by_user.subscribed: If a creator is specified, they will automatically be added as a voter, but will not be subscribed to receive status updates. To subscribe them to receive status updates, enter TRUE in this column.
  
  
• referrer: URL the idea came from if it came from a source such as an email, ticket, SFDC Opportunity, or particular URL of your application. Format: https://www.example.com
  
  
• user_agent: Is a string that lets web services identify the application, operating system, vendor, and/or version of the requesting user. For example: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/103.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 indicates the user engaged with the app or service via Chrome Browser on MacOS.
  
  
• send_autoreply_email: If a creator is specified, you can send a thank you email for submitting their idea. To send a thank you email, enter TRUE in this column.

* Required

If you fill in any of the status fields, then status.name or status_update.body will be required. If left blank, the status will be left as "No Status".  Default statuses do not apply.

• status.name: Idea status (up to 255 characters). The status will need to be set up first, learn to do so here.  

• status_update.body:10K character limit

• status_update.created_timestamp: Defaults to current time. Format: 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z (for UTC). If left blank, we will use the time of the import process. Be sure to leave a status.name if using this field.

• status_update.created_by_user.email_address: Defaults to the admin who ran the import.

Label Details (optional) labels.name

You can import multiple labels at once for an idea, but it will need to be formatted as an array. We'll walk you through how to do this.

• Since labels can be nested, you must provide the full label path in the import. So if 'Label 1' is nested under 'Label Parent A', the entry in the import would look as follows. This will add "Label 1" to the idea on import. ["Label Parent A/Label 1"]

• To add only the parent label or a label that is not nested under another one, you would format the entry like so: ["Label Parent A"]

• Multiple labels can be imported by adding them to the array. The result of the below example is the idea will have Label Parent A, Label 1, Label 2 and Label 3 (not nested under another label). ["Label Parent A","Label Parent A/Label1", "Label Parent A/Label 2", "Label 3"]

• Since forward slashes are used to separate labels in a hierarchy, there is not a way to import labels that contain a forward slash in their name. You can, however, use a backslash but to do so you must include 2 backslashes in the import field. The following example will result in a label named Red\Blue. ["Red\\Blue"]
• If you have a nested label that shares the same name as a parent label, you should create the parent label in the Admin Console prior to importing.

Importing your file

Now that your data is formatted you can add it to Uservoice.  

• If you do not have the import dialogue open already, click the "Idea" icon in the left-hand menu → Click "All Open Ideas" → Click the cloud icon in the top right → Select "Import Ideas".

• Click the "Select .csv file" button → choose your file → click "Next". 

• The next screen will show you how many rows will be imported. If a row contains an error, the whole row will be ignored and it will not be imported. You can choose to ignore the rows with errors or fix them and try again. 

• Click the "Start Import" button, and you're done! You'll receive an email when the import has been completed and you'll see your imported data when you refresh the ideas page.  

Troubleshooting Errors

• Uploaded .csv file is invalid: Make sure you have saved your file as a CSV (comma delimited).

• Required column missing: The following columns must be included in your file: title and forum.name.

• Required values missing: Make sure the following required columns are filled in with your data - they cannot be empty cells: title and forum.name. 

• Invalid values provided: Your field values may not be in the correct format. See the Default Headers section above for formatting guidelines. 

• Reference objects not found: This indicates that your import references a forum or category that has not yet been created in UserVoice. 

• Duplicate records found: One of the ideas in the import has the same title as an existing idea from your forum.  

• Unrecognized column provided: This means that one of the column headers is not recognized by our system. Make sure you are using the headers directly from the template.

Fixing incorrect import data

• If your import included some inaccurate data, in most cases you can delete or update it from the admin console interface. In some cases, it may be easier to delete the inaccurate ideas entirely, fix the errors in your CSV, then import the corrected data. 

• If your new ideas are correct but you have a status which is wrong, you can edit the status body from the admin console. You can also post a new status update using the correct status. 

• If the import created some undesired labels, you can delete them from your settings which will remove them from any ideas they've been added to. 

Common Questions

Q: How do I add voters to the ideas I imported?
A: This article walks through how to import voters and feedback on an idea.

Q. Can I use this import to update existing ideas?
A. No, the import will only let you import new content. You cannot use it to overwrite existing content. 

Q: Why don’t I see the ideas I imported in my current activity feed?
A: Activity feed entries will reflect the created_at date you passed in. So if you set it to a date two years ago, that will be reflected in all activity feeds.

Q: How long will the import take to process?
A: For the maximum size CSV file (20,000 rows), the import may take up to an hour to process, but is often done much faster. 

Q: How can import more than 50,000 rows at once?
A: At this time, this is not possible. If you want to see us add support for this, please share your idea on our forum.