Bulk import participants

Setting up more than a handful of participants one at a time is slow. Import brings many in at once from a single spreadsheet: their core details, contacts, NDIS plan and budgets, service agreement and supports, goals, risks, preferences and consent, all linked together and checked before anything is saved. Matching an email or Australian phone also lets you update participants you already have.

Prepare one participant and a linked contact

For example, use participant-01 in Ref on a real data row in Participants, then use exactly participant-01 in Participant ref on that person’s Contacts row. Complete the participant’s required identity, contact, address and NDIS fields. On the contact row, choose the real Contact type and complete its required fields. Do not start your real Ref with example, because those rows are deliberately skipped.

Save the workbook, use Browse, then read the validation summary before Import. If an issue names Contacts row 4, correct that sheet and row in the workbook and upload the revised file. The issue list is a report, not an editable spreadsheet.

Match and update existing participants

Email or Phone, or both, identifies a participant. Keep phone cells as text to preserve their leading zero. Participant phones must be Australian mobile or landline numbers including the area code; spaces and a leading +61 or 61 are normalised.

• If neither contact matches, the row can create a participant when its required details are complete.
• If a contact matches an existing participant, the row updates that record. Blank update cells preserve stored values under the field’s rules; fill only what you intend to change.
• If email and phone match different participants, the file is rejected. Review both profiles; do not guess which person to overwrite.
• Two rows that use different contacts for the same existing participant are rejected as duplicate updates.
• A phone-only match with a conflicting supplied NDIS number is rejected for review.
• Archived contact matches are rejected. Review the archived record with your workspace administrator before attempting an update. Do not create a replacement just to bypass the conflict.

A successful preview is still checked again when you import. If the import reports a changed or conflicting record, correct the file and validate it again.

The ten sheets

The Ref column gives each participant a unique identifier within this file. Use a short stable value, such as participant-01, their email, or their phone. Every child sheet uses Participant ref to identify the person.

Participant ref accepts an in-file Ref, an email, or an Australian phone. Emails and phones may refer to a participant already in the app, including when that participant has no new Participants row. Different aliases for the same person are resolved together, so they cannot bypass one-plan, one-pool or agreement association checks.

Sheet	Required	Linked by
Participants	Yes, at least one row	Ref (unique within the file; the other sheets point at it)
Contacts	No	Participant ref: a Ref, or an existing participant’s email or phone
NDIS plans	No	Participant ref; at most one plan row per participant
Plan budgets	No	Participant ref; needs one NDIS plan row for that participant
Service agreements	No	Participant ref; one agreement row per participant
Agreement supports	No	Participant ref; needs a Service agreements row for that participant
Goals	No	Participant ref
Risks	No	Participant ref
Preferences	No	Participant ref
Consent	No	Participant ref; one consent row per participant

If a Participant ref does not resolve, the issue names that reference. Check its spelling, leading zeros and formatting against the Participants sheet or the existing participant contact details, then validate again.

Participants

Column	Required	Notes
Ref	Yes	Any short unique id; an email or phone can also be used
First name	Yes
Middle name	No
Last name	Yes
Date of birth	No	DD/MM/YYYY
Gender	No	Male, Female or Prefer not to say
Pronouns	No	Select from list
Ethnicity	No	Select from list
Primary language	No	Select from list
Primary diagnosis	No	Free text
Email	One contact required	A valid email address; may be blank when Phone is supplied
Phone	One contact required	Australian mobile or landline including area code; keep as text to preserve the leading zero
NDIS number	Yes	Enter the reference as issued. Must be unique within your provider
Medicare number	No	10 or 11 digits
Centrelink number	No	9 digits followed by a letter, e.g. 123 456 789A
Address line	Yes
Suburb	No
State	Yes	NSW, VIC, QLD, WA, SA, TAS, NT or ACT
Postcode	Yes	A valid Australian postcode, e.g. 2000

Every newly imported participant starts at status Created, exactly like one added through Add participant. Give them a row on the NDIS plans sheet and their status moves to Plan set; a Signed service agreement row (below) marks the agreement as executed and activates them.

Contacts

Column	Required	Notes
Participant ref	Yes	A Ref on the Participants sheet, or an existing participant’s email or phone
Contact type	Yes	Nominee, Guardian, Family, Emergency contact, Plan manager, Support coordinator or Clinician
First name	Yes
Last name	Yes
Business name	No	For professional contacts (Plan manager, Support coordinator, Clinician)
Relationship	No	For personal contacts (Nominee, Guardian, Family, Emergency contact) only
Phone	Yes	Australian format
Email	Sometimes	Required for Plan manager, Support coordinator and Clinician contacts
Preferred contact method	No	Phone, Email, SMS, Website or None
Address line	No
Suburb	No
State	No	NSW, VIC, QLD, WA, SA, TAS, NT or ACT
Postcode	No	Must be a valid Australian postcode if given
Acts as plan manager	No	Y when a Support coordinator contact also receives and pays invoices
Notes	No

Two role rules match the interactive Contacts tab: a Relationship belongs only on one of the workbook’s personal contact types, and Acts as plan manager applies only to a Support coordinator. A Support coordinator row can link the primary coordinator. Acts as plan manager set to Y additionally makes that coordinator available as the plan-manager contact on a service agreement.

NDIS plans

Column	Required	Notes
Participant ref	Yes	One plan row per participant: it imports as their current plan
Plan number	Yes	Enter the reference as issued
Start date	Yes	DD/MM/YYYY
End date	Yes	DD/MM/YYYY, on or after Start date
Funding management	Yes	Self-managed, Plan-managed, NDIA-managed or Mixed
MMM code	Yes	MM1 (metro) to MM7 (very remote); drives the price-cap region
Notes	No

Plan budgets

Column	Required	Notes
Participant ref	Yes	Needs a row on the NDIS plans sheet for the same participant
Budget type	Yes	Core, Capacity building or Capital
Allocated amount	Yes	Dollars allocated to this pool, e.g. 25000. Must be 0 or more
Stated	No	Y when the funds are locked to that pool

Stated works exactly like the Stated toggle on the NDIS Plan tab, and so does the rule that Capacity building and Capital are always stated under NDIS rules. Those two pools import as stated whether you enter Y or leave the cell blank; only an explicit N is rejected, with “Capacity building budgets are always stated under NDIS rules. Set Stated to Y.” Core is the only pool where the choice is yours.

Every supplied budget row is selected when the plan is reopened, including a known allocation of 0. Omitting a pool does not create a selected pool. The workbook amount is a known amount; it does not represent the plan editor’s Unknown choice.

A budget row’s funding management always follows its own plan’s Funding management, the same as adding a budget from the NDIS Plan tab. Two rules apply:

• A budget row needs its participant to have exactly one NDIS plans row in the same import. Without it, or with more than one, the row is rejected: ‘Participant “…” needs exactly one row on the NDIS plans tab to attach budgets to.’
• Only one budget row per pool per participant: a second is rejected, e.g. “Only one core budget row per participant can be imported (the app keeps a single budget per pool).”

Service agreements

Column	Required	Notes
Participant ref	Yes	One service agreement row per participant
Start date	Yes	On or after the NDIS plan start when a plan row is present
End date	Yes	On or before the NDIS plan end when a plan row is present
Invoice recipient name	Sometimes	Required unless the participant’s plan is NDIA-managed
Invoice email	Sometimes	Required unless the participant’s plan is NDIA-managed
Status	No	Draft (default) or Signed. Signed marks it executed and activates them
NDIA report terms included	No	Y when the agreement covers paid NDIA report-writing time
Non-face-to-face terms included	No	Y when it covers paid non-face-to-face support time
Provider travel time included	No	Y when it covers paid provider travel time
Short notice cancellation terms included	No	Y when it allows short-notice cancellation charges
Cross-boundary higher-of included	No	Y when a support crossing a price band may bill at the higher band’s limit
Cancellation notice hours	No	Agreed short-notice window in hours; leave blank for the standard rule

The agreement window must sit inside the plan’s funded window when a plan row is present, so a start before the plan start or an end after the plan end is rejected and names the plan date. A Signed agreement needs a positive Agreed rate on every one of its supports, or you’ll see ‘Enter the agreed rate for … before importing this agreement as signed.’

Agreement supports

Column	Required	Notes
Participant ref	Yes	Needs a row on the Service agreements sheet for the same participant
Support item number	Yes	NDIS support code, e.g. 01_011_0107_1_1; checked against the catalogue on import
Agreed rate	Sometimes	Unit price in dollars. Required when the agreement is Signed; must be greater than 0
Monthly hours	No	Committed hours per month for planning. Maximum 744 (the hours in the longest month)

Goals, Risks, Preferences and Consent

These four sheets attach smaller records to a participant by Participant ref (Ref, email or phone).

Sheet	Required columns	Optional columns	Notes
Goals	Participant ref, Goal	Progress, Target date, Notes	Progress defaults to Not started. Target date can’t be after the agreement end
Risks	Participant ref, Risk	Rating, Close date, Notes	Rating is Low, Medium, High or Critical. Close date can’t be after the agreement end
Preferences	Participant ref, Title	Description	A short like/dislike shown on the participant’s profile
Consent	Participant ref, Consent date	-	Records a signed manual consent. One consent row per participant

Reading the issue list

Most issues name the field and the rule, for example “Postcode is required.”, “State must be one of: NSW, VIC, QLD, WA, SA, TAS, NT, ACT.”, “Allocated amount must be a number.” or “End date must be on or after Start date.” Format checks (email, phone, NDIS number, plan number, Medicare, Centrelink, postcode) show the same message you’d see filling in the field by hand, for example “Enter a valid email address.” or “Enter a valid Australian postcode.”

A few issues are file-level rather than row-level, and show against File instead of a row number:

• ‘The “Participants” sheet is missing.’ if the workbook has no sheet by that name.
• ‘The “…” sheet is missing the “…” column.’ if a required column’s header was renamed or deleted.
• ‘The “…” sheet has more than 500 data rows (limit 500 per import).’
• “Unsupported file type. Upload a .xlsx or .csv file.” if the extension isn’t .xlsx or .csv.

Prepare a small first import

Start with a copy of your source data and a fresh Download template. You need Participants Add permission. Keep each sheet to 500 data rows or fewer and the file within 5 MB. Exceeding a limit blocks import; split the work into complete, consistently linked files rather than assuming extra rows will be ignored.

For a first example, use one real participant row with Ref participant-01, then use that exact Participant ref on their Contacts and NDIS plans rows. Check the preview, import, and reopen that participant’s profile to verify the contact, current plan and budget before preparing a larger file.

Keep a copy of the completed workbook and issue report according to your organisation’s recordkeeping process. Do not import the same file again merely because you closed the completion screen: first check whether the expected records already exist. For corrections to an imported participant, review the matching rules above or edit the saved profile directly. Importing agreement status is evidence recording; enter Signed only when the agreement has actually been executed.