Most participants will register with your site themselves, but admins can either Invite a participant or Import Participants to the database. You may want to import a group of participants using a CSV file if you collected a group of emails in person or if you had a previous engagement platform.
There are a few things to know before you bulk import participants:
You should only create accounts if you have the user's consent to use their details. You will have privacy obligations and cannot add or invite participants without their consent. For example, you should only use email addresses you collect if you have explicit permission to add them to your database.
When configuring your file, you must include a username and email address, but you can leave the password column blank. The participant can change their username afterward, but an email address cannot be deleted once it is in the database as an admin or participant, so double-check it is correct before importing. Additionally, if you’re receiving an error, please search your database to ensure that the email address is not already in it.
We recommend importing participants without specifying a password, as the account will be inactive, and they will still have to fill in the registration form when they receive the Complete registration email. You can customize this email in Site Settings > Messages & Notifications > Complete registration. If you cannot select the pen icon to edit this email, you will need to toggle off the Enable EngagementHQ to send beautiful HTML emails (recommended). Disable to send custom emails in plain text setting.
If you do provide a password, the account will be active, and the user will not receive a notification. You must let them know their details and how they can change their username, password, and other details from their profile.
How to Import Participants
Go to Participants in the main menu and select Import Participants from the Add Participants drop-down menu.
Read through the instructions, select Download CSV Template, and open the file on your computer.
The file contains three columns (email, login, and password) and you must fill the email and login columns with the users email address and username. You can leave the password column blank or nominate passwords for the users.
Save the file and select Import Participants in your EngagementHQ admin to upload the completed CSV template.
If the participants are imported correctly, you will see a success message, and each participant will have Yes in the Imported column of your Participants database.
You may want to test the process with a colleague or private email first, so you can be sure how the process works for participants.
If you are receiving errors, try these troubleshooting tips:
Upload your participants in groups of 100 to help avoid errors or slow-loading times.
If there are extra spaces or characters in the rows, or if an email is already registered, you will receive an error. Please ensure no spaces are included with the emails or logins.
Often, people will use part of the email as a username, but the system will give an error if you include the @ character in the login column.
Another possible error is that the password rules are not followed – passwords must have a maximum of 16 characters and include at least 1 each number, upper-case letter, and lower-case letter.
If you’re receiving an error but there are no obvious problems with your import file, please double-check that the participants are not already in your database. If you’re still having trouble, please contact our support team via chat or email support@engagementhq.com.