Importing into EMDESK

With the import you add many records from an Excel file in one go, for example when you move a project plan, a consortium list or a budget from a spreadsheet into EMDESK. You can import:

• Workplan: activities (such as work packages and tasks), deliverables and milestones
• Participants
• Personnel cost rates of your participants
• Budget items
• Expenses

This article explains what all imports have in common. The articles linked above list the columns of each import.

• Before you start
• Preparing your file
• Importing step by step
• Result and error file
• Finding imported records

Before you start

• Rights: you need Manage rights to the section you import into (see Roles and access rights). The file can only refer to activities, participants and other records you can at least read.
• Version: Workplan, participants, personnel cost rates and budget can only be imported into the latest, editable plan version. Expenses can only be imported while reporting is on and the active version is selected.
• Basic records: imports refer to records that must already exist. Workplan needs activity types, Participants need participant types, and Budget and Expenses need activities, participants and cost categories (see Customise your workspace). If something is missing, EMDESK shows Import requirements with the sections in which you first have to create records.
• Order: import in this order: projects and activities, then participants and their personnel cost rates, then budget, then expenses.
• Structures: an activity or participant can only be placed under a parent that already exists in EMDESK. Import a structure level by level, one file per level, e.g. first the work packages, then their tasks, deliverables and milestones (see Workplan and Participants).

Preparing your file

Importing step by step

1. Open the import in the section you want to import into:
   • Workplan: click + Import at the bottom of the table.
   • Participants: click + Import at the bottom. Personnel cost rates are imported from the arrow next to it.
   • Budget and Expenses: click the arrow next to Add Budget or Add Expense at the top right and select Import.

2. If your workspace contains several projects, choose the project you want to import into and click Next. Workplan, Budget and Expenses ask for it.

3. Click Select or drop file and choose your file, or drag it into the box. Sample spreadsheet downloads a sample file and View import guide opens this article.

4. Check the mapping. Each column of your file is shown with a preview of its first values. Columns mapped automatically are marked green. The bottom line shows how many records were found and how many required properties are mapped.

5. To map a column by hand, choose the property in the dropdown on the right. Columns without a property are not imported.

6. If a required property is not mapped, click Next. Under Some required properties are missing. enter a default value for it. This value is used for every record of the file.

7. Click Import now. Depending on the size of the file, the import takes a few seconds to a few minutes.

Result and error file

When the import is finished, EMDESK returns to the section and shows a message:

• Import completed. All records of the file were imported.

• Import completed. An error file was downloaded. Some records could not be imported, for example because a value has the wrong format or an activity or participant was not found. All other records were imported.

The error file (.xlsx) contains only the records that were not imported, with the wrong values marked red. Correct them and import the error file again until all records are accepted.

Finding imported records

• Budget and Expenses: after the import, the table is filtered to the records just imported. Later you can find them with the Imported on filter.
• Workplan and Participants: imported records are added to the table. To find all records of one import later, add a Tags column to your file, for example with import-2026-10, and filter by this tag.