Learn how to upload an Excel file and map its columns to Qondor fields to import participants into your project.

Before you begin

Your Excel file must have column headers in the first row.
First name and last name must be in separate columns.
The data must be on the first sheet of the workbook.
Both .xls and .xlsx formats are supported.

Import participants

1. Open your project and go to the participants section.

2. Click Import.

You find Import participants in the top right corner of the Participants menu:

3. Select your Excel file and upload it.

There is also an example file avialable that you can download to ensure the file has the right format.

4. Choose the import status
At the top of the mapping screen, select whether to import participants as Attending or Potential:

Attending — the participants are confirmed and will appear as attending immediately.
Potential — use this when you plan to invite participants to register via a form later.

You must select an import status before you can proceed.

5. Map your columns to Qondor fields

Each column from your spreadsheet is listed on the left. Next to each column name is a dropdown where you tell Qondor which field that column represents. You have three options for each column:

A standard field — fixed participant fields such as First name, Last name, Email, Gender, and Category.
A custom field — fields that have been added specifically for this project.
Do not map — skip the column entirely.

Qondor tries to auto-match your column headers to its standard fields. It recognises common names in multiple languages — for example, "Fornavn", "Vorname", and "Prénom" all map automatically to First name. If a column header does not match, you need to pick the correct field from the dropdown manually.

Understand the required and optional fields

Only two fields are required:

First name — must be mapped to a column.
Last name — must be mapped to a column.

All other fields are optional.

Create new custom fields during import

If your Excel file has a column that does not match any existing field — for example, "Dietary requirements" or "T-shirt size" — select New custom field from the dropdown. Qondor creates a new single-line text custom field and maps the column data into it in one step. You can optionally give the new field a different name from the column header.

Review validation results
When you click to proceed, Qondor validates every row before anything is saved. If something is wrong, you see a summary of errors that includes which rows failed, which column caused the problem, and what the issue is (for example, an invalid email, a duplicate login code, or an unparseable date value with the row number).

The import is all-or-nothing. If any row fails validation, no participants are saved. Fix the errors in your Excel file and upload it again.

Here are some common optional fields and their validation rules:

Gender — accepted values: female, mrs, ms, miss, f and male, mr, m
Email — must be a valid email address
Phone number — must start with a country code, or you need the country code in a separate column. Must be a valid combination of country code + number
Country — only English spelling is accepted (e.g. "Norway", not "Norge")
Participant category — the category must already exist in Qondor before the import; it won't be created automatically
Programs — if a program name doesn't exist in Qondor, it will be created automatically
Login code — must be unique per participant within the project
Date fields — use Excel date cells, or text dates in one of these formats:
– ISO format: 2029-05-17
– Day + month name + year: 17 May 2029 or 17 mai 2029 (month names work in any participant web language)
– Numeric formats like 17.05.2029 or 05/17/2029 are not accepted because day/month order is ambiguous
Time fields — format cells as Text in Excel so the data imports correctly

Failed import

If your import fails because you have not mapped the columns correctly or there are invalid data in your Excel file, you will be taken to an "Import failed" page. It will show what you need to correct in order to succeed with the import. From this page, you are able to upload a new Excel file or go back to change the column mapping. See example below of a failed import:

If a date column contains values that aren't valid dates, Qondor lists each value and its row number on the mapping page, so you can fix them before importing.

Know the limitations

You cannot re-import an updated list of already-imported participants — doing so will create duplicates. To update existing participants, you need to edit them individually (or bulk-edit statuses/custom fields).

No duplicate detection — Qondor does not check whether a participant with the same name or email already exists. Re-importing the same file creates duplicates. To update existing participants, edit them individually or use bulk editing.
No partial imports — either every row is valid and all participants are created, or nothing is saved.
Single-category projects — if the project has exactly one participant category, all imported participants are automatically assigned to it, regardless of whether you mapped a Category column.

Import Participants