Import Room Reservations

This article explains how to import attendees' accommodation reservations into an event from an Excel or CSV file.

Pre-Requisites

Attendees for whom the rooms are being reserved must be added to the event before importing new room reservations.
The Blocks or Sub-Blocks from which the room-nights are to be drawn must be defined in the event.
Import file requirements:
File type must be an Excel file (.xls or .xlsx) or a CSV file (.csv).
If your import includes international or special characters, best practice is to use a CSV file.
The first row must be column names. You will use the column names when mapping the fields.

Requirements

Required fields when adding new registrations

Registration Code – The attendee.
Hotel Code – Must be as specified in the relevant accommodation block or sub-block.
Room Type Code – Must be as specified in the relevant accommodation block or sub-block.
Arrival Date and Departure Date – Must be valid dates in mm/dd/yyyy format.
If a Sub-Block Name is included in the import, then the dates must be between the sub-block's Start and End dates.
If no Sub-Block Name is included in the import, then inventory will come from a Block. In that case the dates must be between the Start and End dates of a block for that hotel and room type.
Guest 1 Name

Required fields when updating existing registrations

Unique ID – to identify the records to update.
Registration Code
Arrival Date and Departure Date – Must be valid dates in mm/dd/yyyy format.
Must be between the Start and End dates of the relevant block or sub-block.
Guest 1 Name
Note: Only columns with values in them will update the records concerned.
Columns with no values (or not included in the file) will leave the existing data unchanged.
Other data must be valid. For example:
Date Confirmed – If entered, must be a valid date in mm/dd/yyyy format.
Tip: Format all date cells as mm/dd/yyyy in Excel, to help avoid errors.
Smoking, Sharing and Overbook must be Yes, No, or blank.

Steps to follow to import Room Reservations

1. Select whether to import new reservations or update existing ones.

2. Best practice: In the first step of the wizard you can click a link to download a template Excel file to populate.

3. If you're adding new room reservations, download the first Excel template.

4. If you're amending existing room reservations, download the second Excel template, which starts with a Unique ID column. That's what identifies the reservation to be updated. Note: You can run a Room Reservations report to find the Unique IDs of existing reservations.

5. Once you have a file ready to import, click Next in the first step.

6. Drop a file into step 2, or click Choose File and select the file to upload.

7. In the next step, map the columns in your import file to the Instance Field in Certain.

8. Click Complete Import to start or schedule the import process.

9. You receive an email advising that the import is complete, with details of any rows that failed to import.

10. An import will fail if, for example, it includes invalid data such as incorrectly formatted dates (see above), or an incorrect Registration Code, Hotel Code, Room Type Code, Sub-Block Name, or Unique ID.

Additional notes

You can run a Room Reservations report to find the Unique IDs of existing reservations.

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