Bulk import of a parent form and multiple subforms from one Excel workbook

General
1

Is it possible in ActivityInfo to populate a parent form and several subforms through a single Excel import?

Our use case is an annual country submission with one parent form and several subforms. Ideally, the focal point would complete one Excel workbook, with one sheet corresponding to each form/subform, and then upload the workbook once.

For example:

  • Parent Form

  • Subform 1

  • Subform 2

  • Subform 3

  • Subform 4

  • etc.

The parent form would be identified by keys such as Country + Reporting year, and each subform sheet would contain the corresponding parent keys.

Is there any supported way to import the whole workbook at once and have ActivityInfo automatically route each sheet to the correct parent form/subform while preserving the relationships? The current workflow is to manually paste each subform from the spreadsheet to the corresponding sub-form. A bulk one Excel data entry workflow will improve significantly the user experience.

If this is not supported through the standard importer, is there another recommended approach, for example through the API or another bulk import workflow?

2

Hi Walid, thanks for your question. This is unfortunately not possible at this time. The way the importer works is that you import records into a single form at a time (Subforms are separate forms from their parent form). You would also need to have the parent record created first so that the subform records can be associated with the correct parent record.

There currently are no other methods to achieve the one-step import that you describe. The next best alternative might be to make use of the Interactive Table where you can more quickly navigate between the parent and subforms, then copy and paste directly into the tables.

All this being said, I recognize the benefit of simplifying the import process for these kinds of datasets. I can raise this with our Product Team to see if there are any opportunities for improvement here.