🔓 Access level in Planday: Administrator, HR manager.
🌐 Subscription plan: All
⏱️ Set up time: 5 min. Reading time: 3 min.
✅ Required steps: How to create or edit an Employee group
ℹ️ Important read: How to create and edit employees & How to invite employees to Planday.
Why use bulk import?
If you have many employees, importing them in bulk is faster than adding them one by one.
Go to Planday web > People > Employees
Click Create employees > Import from file
Prepare your file
Your file should include:
Required fields
First name
Surname (last name)
Optional fields
Email - This will become the username*; required if you want to invite employees to Planday
Department
Employee group
Tip: Click Download excel template to get a ready‑made template with the correct headings.
Supported formats: .csv or .xls
* Use of special characters in the username
* Use of special characters in the username
The following characters are not supported in the e-mail (username):
Umlauts ä, ö and ü, and the ß in upper and lower case.
Scandinavian letters æ, ø, å in upper and lower case.
These characters are supported in the username:
a-z in upper and lower case, 0-9 and .! #$%&'*+/=? ^_`{|}~-
Upload your file
Click Browse files or drag‑and‑drop your file into the blue box.
Map each Planday field to the matching column in your file.
Link Departments & Employee groups
For Department and Employee group fields, link them to the matching items in Planday.
If you don’t see the correct Department or Employee group, click Manage department or Manage employee groups to create them, then link again.
Review and import
Do a final check of the employees you’re importing and click Start import.
If successful, you’ll see how many new employees were added. To view your newly created employees, go to People > Employees.
If there are errors (for example, missing required fields, duplicate usernames), you’ll see an error screen. Hover over the red symbol to read the issue.
Fix errors and re‑import if needed
See example below
See example below
FAQs
What fields can I import?
What fields can I import?
First name
Surname
Email (username)
Department
Employee group
Can I import other fields (e.g., hire date, employee type etc)?
Can I import other fields (e.g., hire date, employee type etc)?
It's not possible to bulk import other fields than the ones included in the overview. In future versions of the bulk import, it'll be possible to import fields such as employee types or hired date.
What if an employee works in multiple Departments or Employee groups?
What if an employee works in multiple Departments or Employee groups?
If an employee belongs to several Departments or Employee groups, write one Department or Employee group in the file you want to import. Then, once the employees are imported, go to People > Employees to assign them to other Departments or Employee groups.
Read next:
ℹ️ Need more help?
🔍 Search the Help Center | See videos at Tutorials.Planday.com | Watch a webinar
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