Importing last year's entrants from a CSV

What the importer is for

Most clubs have last year’s entrants in a spreadsheet, or a list from whatever they used before. The importer turns that file into confirmed entries on this year’s show, each with a Car Number, without anyone re-typing names. It lives on the Registrants page behind the Import CSV button, and only an owner or admin can run it. Staff see the page with a note saying so.

What the file needs

A CSV with a header row. Four columns are required, the rest are optional, and the importer recognizes the usual spellings, so a header that says Owner Name, Name, or Registrant all land in the same place. Columns it does not recognize are ignored, not errors.

Column	Required	Headers it recognizes
Owner name	Yes	owner, name, owner name, full name, registrant, first name (plus last name, surname, or lname joined on)
Vehicle year	Yes	year, yr, vehicle year
Make	Yes	make, vehicle make
Model	Yes	model, vehicle model
Email	No	email, e-mail, email address
Car number	No	car_number, car number, car #, car no, number, no
Categories	No	categories, category, class, classes (separate several with semicolons)
Car club	No	car_club, car club, club
Phone	No	phone, phone number, cell, telephone

Limits: one file up to about 800 KB and 1,000 rows. Bigger than that, split it. Years must be real model years, and car numbers must sit between 1 and 9999.

Matching columns and previewing

After the upload, the importer shows your header row with a few sample rows underneath and a dropdown for each field it can fill. It guesses from the headers, including chatty ones like “What year is your vehicle?”, and you correct anything it got wrong. A column that is not in the file stays on “Not in this file”.

Preview import checks every row without writing anything. When it passes, the page says how many registrants are ready and the button becomes Import. Until you press that, the show is untouched.

What each row becomes

• A confirmed entry. Every row lands with the status Confirmed, as a pre-registration, marked as imported. Nobody is emailed by the import itself; when you later email your registrants, imported people are on the list like anyone else.
• A Car Number. A number in the file is kept if it is free. A blank gets the next free number in the show’s sequence.
• Payment status from one checkbox. Leave “These entries still owe payment” off and the rows owe nothing, which is right for people who paid you elsewhere or comps. Turn it on and they show as awaiting payment, for staff to mark paid at check-in. Imported rows are never marked paid by the importer itself.
• Categories by name. A category in the file must already exist on the show, spelled the same (capitals do not matter). A row naming two categories only passes when the show allows cars in more than one.
• The registrant record. A row whose email already belongs to someone in your organization reuses that person. A row with no email gets a placeholder address, so the entry exists but cannot be emailed later.

Car club and phone are kept with the entry’s answers. Status and payment columns from our own export are ignored on the way back in, so an exported file re-imports as fresh confirmed entries rather than trying to replay last year’s check-ins.

Duplicates and re-runs

A duplicate is the same email with the same year, make, and model. Inside one file, the second copy is flagged as a duplicate of an earlier row. Against the show, a match is flagged as already registered. Both are errors, so a duplicate blocks the import rather than slipping in or merging quietly. Running the same file twice therefore imports nothing the second time, as long as the rows carry email addresses. A row with a car number that is already taken fails for that reason instead.

Fixing errors

The importer is all or nothing. One bad row and nothing is written, and the page lists every problem with its row number as your spreadsheet shows it, header row included. The messages say what to fix: no owner name, a year that does not look like a model year, an email that is not an address, a car number outside 1 to 9999 or already taken, a category the show does not have. Fix the file or the column matching, preview again, import when it is clean. Blank lines are skipped, not counted as errors.

What it does not do

• It does not read Excel files. CSV only.
• It does not create categories. Add them on the Categories page first.
• It does not import check-in state, paid status, or cancellations. Every row arrives Confirmed.
• It does not update existing entries. A match is an error, not a merge.
• It does not take payments or touch your payment provider.
• It does not import answers to custom questions from your form.

Exporting

Export CSV on the Registrants page downloads the list you are looking at, honoring the search and filters, ordered by Car Number. The columns are car number, year, make, model, owner, email, car club, categories, status, and payment. Every one of those headers is one the importer recognizes, which is the point: the file you export after this year’s show is the file you import for next year’s, unchanged. Next, set up the categories the file names on the Categories page, then upload.

Keep reading

• Check-in and cards
• Emailing registrants
• Gate Mode
• Gear & services
• Group entries
• Judged scoring
• The location check
• Payments and payouts
• Recurring shows
• Results and awards
• Roles and staff access
• Security and reliability
• Setting up registration
• Spectator donations
• Spectator voting
• Sponsor invoices
• Sponsors and tiers
• Testing your show
• Your own pages