Using the Import Tool to bulk-update Project Roles
PRINTPrior to Toolbox 7.1 many unions used lists to designate the type of function someone had within their organization or campaigns. For example, unions that use Toolbox for Internal Organizing or Political Organizing frequently created lists & labeled them “Steward” or “Political Organizer” because lists are easily customizable. The drawback, however, was that Toolbox Administrator did not have the ability to automatically generate and maintain Turf with these lists.
With the introduction of Project Roles in Toolbox 7.1 many Toolbox Administrators will want to leverage the power of customized Roles and thus will need to migrate batches of workers from lists to Roles. This document describes the path to add several names to a variety of Project Roles in a few easy steps. Note: Familiarity with exporting and importing data to the Toolbox is necessary.
First, open a Project where you’d like to add several people to a new Role. In this example I’m going to use a Project called Membership to move people from OC to the new Role of Steward.
After filtering for OC in the Membership Project, select a Person Extract and include the following fields
- Firstname
- lastname
- personid
After the export finishes open the Import Tool and load the file you just exported. Set matching criteria to match on personID and then open Default Values and enter the following fields:
- Role 1 - “Steward”
- Role 1 Project - “Membership”
Note: if you neglect to enter a valid Project name the Import Tool will display a message that the Project was not found and role information will be discarded.
Preview the import to confirm that everything looks correct and then import the data.
Next, open the database and open the Membership Project. Launch the Project Roles Manager and confirm that Steward has been added to the Project as a new Role and confirm that everyone you want on the list is accounted for. If everyone is there then you can delete the Organizing Committee Role from the Project. Click the “Add/Remove Roles” button at the bottom of the Project Roles screen, select the Organizing Committee Role, and then click the “Remove form Project” button. You’ll receive the following message:
Click OK. Note: Deleting a Role from a Project removes it only from that Project but does not affect anyone with that Role in other Projects.