Bulk importing organization data (legacy)

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<p id="docs-hc-snippet" style="display: none;">Zendesk recommends using thedata importerto import organization data instead of the legacy Bulk actions page described in this article. However, if you prefer, you can still use the Bulk actions page to import new or updated organization information.</p>
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<p id="docs-ai-summary-toggle">Summary: <span id="up-triangle">◀</span><span id="down-triangle">▼</span></p>
<p id="docs-ai-summary-content">You can bulk import organization data using a CSV file with specific fields like name, external ID, notes, and tags. Imports support up to 2,000 rows per file and require organizations to be imported before users. Limitations include no support for some data types and one file import at a time. Admins must enable data imports, and updates overwrite existing data if fields are left blank.</p>
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<p class="p">Zendesk recommends using the <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408885980186" target="_blank">data importer</a> to import organization data instead of the
legacy Bulk actions page described in this article. However, if you prefer, you can
still use the Bulk actions page to import new or updated organization information.</p>
<div class="p">
<div class="note important" id="zug_bulk_import_org_legacy__note_exj_r4l_4hc">
<span class="importanttitle">Important:</span>
<ul class="ul" id="zug_bulk_import_org_legacy__ul_enz_vv1_5cc">
<li class="li">To protect the data in your Zendesk account, data imports are not enabled by
default. The account owner or an admin must contact <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408843597850" target="_blank">Zendesk Customer Support</a> to enable
data exports and access to the imports page.</li>
<li class="li">If you want to bulk import both users and organizations, you must import
organizations first.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<p class="p">This article includes the following topics:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="zug_bulk_import_org_legacy__ul_ank_pbt_ffc">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_i3t_5gr_2jc">Considerations for bulk importing organizations (legacy)</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_tlk_5bt_ffc">Creating the CSV organization data file (legacy)</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_c15_5bt_ffc">Using a bulk actions import to import organization data (legacy)</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_i3t_5gr_2jc">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">Considerations for bulk importing organizations (legacy)</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">There are several limitations and considerations you should review before bulk
importing organizations.</p>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested2" id="id_ul5_nct_ffc">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title3">Limitations for bulk importing users and organizations (legacy)</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">You can import a core set of data about users and organizations. For example, you can
import the data described in the table below. However, you can't import time zones, photos,
language preferences, and other data. To import data not listed in the table below, you must
use the Zendesk REST API instead. See <a class="xref" href="https://developer.zendesk.com/rest_api/docs/core/users" target="_blank">Importing
users with the Zendesk API</a> or <a class="xref" href="https://developer.zendesk.com/rest_api/docs/core/organizations#content" target="_blank">Importing organizations with the Zendesk API</a>.</p>
<ul class="ul" id="id_ul5_nct_ffc__d8e74">
<li class="li">When using the Bulk actions pages, the import CSV data file can contain a maximum of
2,000 rows. That is, one header row and up to 1,999 rows of data.</li>
<li class="li">Don't include the same user or organization more than once within a CSV file. Doing so
can cause your import to fail.</li>
<li class="li">There's no guarantee that records are created or updated in the order they appear in the
CSV file.</li>
<li class="li">You can only import one CSV file at a time. Therefore, if you have more data than the
maximum number of rows supported for the CSV file, you must create separate files for each
batch and import them one after another. When you're not using the data importer, up to
two batches are queued and run in the background. If you want to import more than two
batches, you need to wait until the first batches are finished importing to add more.</li>
<li class="li">You cannot use bulk importing to import contact information from end-user Facebook or X
(formerly Twitter) accounts. Instead, use the Zendesk REST API. See <a class="xref" href="https://developer.zendesk.com/rest_api/docs/core/users" target="_blank">Importing
users with the Zendesk API</a>.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title4" class="topic nested1" id="topic_tlk_5bt_ffc">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title4">Creating the CSV organization data file (legacy)</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">To bulk import organizations, use a CSV organization data file. This section explains
how to set up your CSV data file. </p>
<div class="p">Here are some important things to keep in mind when creating your file:<ul class="ul" id="topic_tlk_5bt_ffc__ul_oxy_vct_ffc">
<li class="li">The file must be properly formatted CSV and saved using UTF-8 character
encoding.</li>
<li class="li">The first row of the CSV file is the header row. </li>
<li class="li">The header row must contain any required fields in the table below, plus any
other fields listed in the table below that you want to include. </li>
<li class="li">In your header row, use either <em class="ph i">domain_names</em> or <em class="ph i">default</em>,
depending on your import method. They can't be used together.</li>
<li class="li">If you are not importing data for a field, do not list it in the header row. </li>
<li class="li">Empty columns of data in the file will overwrite any existing data for that
organization.</li>
<li class="li">Add line breaks to notes or multiline custom fields by pressing ALT+ENTER on
Windows or CTRL+OPTION+RETURN on macOS.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="p">The following table lists the fields that you can include in the file.
<div class="tablenoborder">
<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" class="table" frame="border" id="topic_tlk_5bt_ffc__table_pxy_vct_ffc" rules="all" summary="">
<caption><span class="tablecap"><span class="table--title-label">Table 1. </span>Organization import data</span></caption>
<colgroup>
<col style="width:23.980815347721823%">
<col style="width:76.01918465227818%">
</colgroup>
<thead class="thead" style="text-align:left;">
<tr class="row">
<th class="entry nocellnorowborder" id="d90e191" style="vertical-align:top;">Field</th>
<th class="entry cell-norowborder" id="d90e194" style="vertical-align:top;">Description</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody class="tbody">
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d90e191" style="vertical-align:top;">name</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d90e194" style="vertical-align:top;">
<strong class="ph b">Required</strong>. The organization name.</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d90e191" style="vertical-align:top;">external_id</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d90e194" style="vertical-align:top;">Optional, but recommended; required if you intend to use the
data importer to update these records in the future. A uniquely
identifying value, such as an employee or customer identifying
number in an external system.</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d90e191" style="vertical-align:top;">notes</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d90e194" style="vertical-align:top;">Notes about the organization. Notes are visible to agents
only, not to end users. </td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d90e191" style="vertical-align:top;">default</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d90e194" style="vertical-align:top;">This is for mapping users to an organization. Enter one or
more email domains, separated with spaces (for example,
organization1.com organization2.com).<p class="p">See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408882246298#topic_nxl_vdt_bc" target="_blank">Automatically adding users to
organizations based on their email domain</a>.
</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d90e191" style="vertical-align:top;">shared</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d90e194" style="vertical-align:top;">True or False. Sets the organization as a shared
organization. <p class="p">See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408882246298#topic_nat_vgn_bc" target="_blank">Setting up a shared organization for
end users</a>. </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d90e191" style="vertical-align:top;">shared_comments</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d90e194" style="vertical-align:top;">True or False. Allows all users in the organization to add
comments to each other's tickets. The shared field must also be
set to true. <p class="p">See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408882246298#topic_nat_vgn_bc" target="_blank">Setting up a shared organization for
end users</a>. </p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d90e191" style="vertical-align:top;">group</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d90e194" style="vertical-align:top;">Enter a default group for the organization. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408882246298#topic_cfj_gfn_bc" target="_blank">Mapping a group to an organization</a>.
</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d90e191" style="vertical-align:top;">tags</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d90e194" style="vertical-align:top;">When user and organization tagging has been enabled for
Zendesk Support (see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408881573658" target="_blank">Adding tags and users to
organizations</a>), you can set tags for the
organization. Separate each tag with spaces. <p class="p">When you bulk
import organizations, the tags in your CSV file replace the
existing org tags. To avoid this from happening, consider
using the <a class="xref" href="https://developer.zendesk.com/api-reference/sales-crm/resources/tags/" target="_blank">Tags API</a> to update
tags instead.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry row-nocellborder" headers="d90e191" style="vertical-align:top;">custom_fields.<em class="ph i">&lt;field
key&gt;</em>
</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d90e194" style="vertical-align:top;">When you perform a bulk organization import, you can import a
custom organization field by specifying
the <strong class="ph b">custom_fields.</strong> prefix and the field key. <p class="p">For
example, for the field key <strong class="ph b">subscription_date</strong>, use the
following to set the imported values for this field.</p>
<div class="p">
<pre class="pre" id="topic_tlk_5bt_ffc__pre_tdl_qdr_2jc">custom_fields.subscription_date</pre>
</div>
<p class="p">To locate the field key for a custom org field, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/9199731160474" target="_blank">Finding the field key or
field ID for a custom field</a>.</p>
<p class="p">If a field
value is not formatted correctly, the import will fail, and
you will be emailed an error report specifying which records
failed to save. For custom date fields, use either the
YY/MM/DD or YYYY-MM-DD format. For checkbox fields, use
either <em class="ph i">True</em> or
<em class="ph i">False</em>.
To set the value of drop-down list options, use the tag you
added when you created the drop-down list.</p>
<div class="note" id="topic_tlk_5bt_ffc__note_udl_qdr_2jc">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> If the custom organization field
you're importing is a <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4591924111770" target="_blank">lookup relationship
field</a>, enter the ID of the related object as the
value for this field. For example, for an organization,
enter the organization's ID; for a user, enter the user's
ID; for a custom object record, enter the record's ID. To
find an organization, user, or custom object record ID, you
can <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408886165402" target="_blank">export data from your
account</a> or use the <a class="xref" href="https://developer.zendesk.com/api-reference/ticketing/organizations/organizations/#list-organizations" target="_blank">Organizations API</a>,
<a class="xref" href="https://developer.zendesk.com/api-reference/ticketing/users/users/#list-users" target="_blank">Users API</a>, or
<a class="xref" href="https://developer.zendesk.com/api-reference/custom-data/custom-objects/custom_object_records/#list-custom-object-records" target="_blank">Custom Object Records
API</a>.<p class="p">Lookup
relationship fields aren't supported when importing
organizations on the data importer
page.</p>
</div>
<p class="p">See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408842677786" target="_blank">Adding custom fields to
organizations</a>.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title5" class="topic nested1" id="topic_c15_5bt_ffc">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title5">Using a bulk actions import to import organization data (legacy)</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">We recommend using the <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408885980186" target="_blank">data importer</a>, but you can still use the Bulk actions
pages to import new and updated organization data. Your import is added to the
queue, and the organizations are added to Zendesk Support when the import process is
complete. This should take around an hour per file to complete, but it does depend
on file size and queue size. </p>
<p class="p">You'll receive an email when your imports from this page are complete. </p>
<div class="p">
<strong class="ph b">To create or update organizations with a CSV import</strong><ol class="ol" id="topic_c15_5bt_ffc__ol_dpe_xjs_dc">
<li class="li"><span class="ph">In <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4581766374554#topic_hfg_dyz_1hb" target="_blank">Admin Center</a>, click <img class="image" id="topic_c15_5bt_ffc__d9e856" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/ac_people_icon.png">
<strong class="ph b">People</strong> in the sidebar, then select <strong class="ph b">Bulk actions &gt; Import
organizations</strong>.</span></li>
<li class="li">Choose the type of import you want to perform:<ul class="ul" id="topic_c15_5bt_ffc__ul_zsy_gks_dc">
<li class="li">
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Create new organizations</strong></p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Update existing organizations</strong>: Use this type of import to
replace existing data for the organizations listed in your CSV
file. </p>
<p class="p">Organizations' external_id or name must be included in the CSV so
that they can be identified. Other than an organization
identifier field, you only need to include the fields that you
want to update in the file. If an organization's row has a blank
field, it will overwrite the existing data for that
organization. </p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="li">Either click <strong class="ph b">Choose File</strong> or the <strong class="ph b">Let me paste in data instead</strong>
link. </li>
<li class="li">Click <strong class="ph b">Import</strong>.<p class="p">After the import starts, the imported changes can't
be reverted.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">(Optional) View the status of in-progress imports on the <span class="ph">Admin Center &gt; Objects and rules &gt; Tools &gt; Data importer</span> page. After an import completes, it's captured in the Import history log
there.</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
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