Importing Members from a CSV File

If you have a list of people in a spreadsheet — from a sign-up sheet, another church management tool, or Planning Center — you can import them all at once.

Before you begin

• You need the Admin role.
• Your file should be a .csv or .xlsx file with columns for names, emails, and any other details.

Step 1: Upload your file

1. Go to People and click Import.
2. Drop your file into the upload area, or click to browse your computer.
3. Churchday reads your file and moves to the next step.

You can also download a CSV template to see the expected format.

Step 2: Map your columns

Churchday tries to automatically match your spreadsheet columns to the right fields (like "First Name" to first name, "Email" to email). For each column:

• Auto-matched columns are already connected to the correct field. Review these to make sure they look right.
• Columns that need review could not be matched automatically. Use the dropdown to pick the correct field, or choose "Skip column" to leave it out.
• Unmapped columns will be skipped during import.

You must map at least a Name and Email column to continue.

Click Continue to Review when your columns are mapped.

Step 3: Review your data

Before importing, Churchday checks for problems:

• Ready to import — Rows with no issues.
• Warnings — Rows that have minor issues (like a missing phone number) but can still be imported.
• Errors (will be skipped) — Rows with serious problems like missing names, invalid emails, or duplicate entries.

You can:

• Toggle Show problems only to focus on rows that need attention.
• Edit names and emails directly in the preview table by clicking on them.
• Download a CSV of issues to fix problems in your spreadsheet and re-import.

Import options

• Duplicate handling — If Churchday finds people who already exist (matched by email), choose to Skip duplicates (keep existing data) or Update existing (overwrite with CSV data).
• Tag imported contacts — Type a tag name (like "Spring Import 2026") to automatically tag everyone from this import.
• Import CSV tags as... — If your file has a tags column, choose whether to create them as Tags, Groups, or Teams in Churchday.

Click Import when ready.

Step 4: Confirm

Churchday processes your file and shows a summary:

• How many contacts were created (new).
• How many were updated (existing, if you chose "Update existing").
• How many were skipped (due to errors).

If there were errors, you will see details about what went wrong.

Click View Contacts to go to your updated directory, or Import More to upload another file.

Good to know

• Large files are processed in batches of 50 for reliability.
• The import wizard auto-detects Planning Center CSV columns, so exports from Planning Center work especially well.
• Tags from your CSV that do not exist yet are created automatically.
• You can always undo an import by filtering for the import tag and deleting those members.

What's next?

• View your updated directory
• Organize imported people with tags