How do I import opportunities from a spreadsheet?

Overview

If you are setting Vome up for the first time, or you run dozens of standing opportunities, building them one at a time is slow. The opportunities importer creates a batch of opportunities from a single spreadsheet, matches the names in your file to what already exists in Vome, and then lets you set the shared settings once for the whole batch.

One row becomes one opportunity. You can import up to 500 opportunities in a single file.

Nothing is created until the last step. You can upload a file, work through the matching, change your mind and leave. No opportunities, categories, tags or sites are created until you press Import on the review step.

1. Where do I find the opportunities importer?

Go to the Opportunities module, open the Add opportunity button at the top, and choose Import opportunities.

The same menu holds Add opportunity, which builds one opportunity step by step. Importing counts as creating, so any admin whose role lets them create an opportunity can also import.

2. What does my spreadsheet need to look like?

Upload a .xlsx or .csv file. The first row is your column titles, and every row after that is one opportunity.

Two columns are required:

Title
Description

Everything else is optional:

Category, the category the opportunity belongs to.
Coordinator, the admin who owns it.
Watchers, other admins who follow it.
Location type, on-site or remote.
Address, the place, for on-site opportunities.
Opportunity tags.
Sites, the sites the opportunity is linked to.
Commitment, one-time or recurring.

The upload step offers a template you can download. Starting from it is the easiest way to get the column titles right, though you do not have to: your own Excel or CSV file works just as well, because column titles are matched loosely, so "Opportunity title", "Role title" or "Name" all resolve to Title, and French headings work too.

Where a row can hold several values, separate them with commas, semicolons or line breaks in one cell. That applies to Watchers, Opportunity tags and Sites.

For Location type, write the words you would normally use. On-site, in person and physical all read as on-site. Remote, virtual, online and from home all read as remote. If you leave the column out entirely, you pick one default for the whole batch on the matching step.

Commitment works the same way. One-time, once and single all read as one-time. Recurring, repeating, ongoing and regular all read as recurring. Leave the column out and you set one commitment for the whole batch on the settings step instead.

Only the commitment type is importable, never the recurrence itself. A recurring pattern is four values that have to agree with each other (a number, a frequency, a duration and a start date), which has no honest single-cell form. So a Commitment column says one-time or recurring, and the pattern behind "recurring" is set once for the batch on the settings step.

3. What happens to a row that is not complete?

It is skipped, and the rest of your file still imports. One typo does not cost you the upload.

A row is skipped when it has no title, no description, a location type Vome cannot read, or a commitment Vome cannot read. Every skipped row is listed with its row number and the reason, so you can fix the file and upload again, or import the good rows now and add the rest by hand.

4. How does the "Match your file" step work?

Your spreadsheet contains names. Vome contains records. The matching step is where you say which is which.

Vome collects every distinct value in your Category, Coordinator, Watchers, Address, Opportunity tags and Sites columns, matches what it can, and asks you about the rest. For each value you choose to match it to something that exists, create it, or skip it. Where a value is close to an existing record you get a "Did you mean" suggestion you can accept in one click, and each value shows how many rows use it so you can see what a decision affects.

A few columns behave in their own way:

Categories can be matched or created. You also set a default category, used for rows with no category of their own and for any name you chose to skip, and a cover photo theme for the categories this import creates.
Coordinators are matched to your existing admins. New admins cannot be created here. Every opportunity needs a coordinator, so you have to choose a default coordinator before you can continue.
Watchers are matched to your existing admins too. A name that matches nobody is simply left off.
Locations are matched to your saved locations, or added. A new address is looked up so it maps correctly. You can set a default location for every on-site opportunity that has no location of its own. An on-site opportunity with no location at all will block the import until you resolve it.
Opportunity tags can be matched or created.
Sites can be matched or created. Creating one opens the full site setup so you can name it properly, and you can add its branding and settings afterwards. One Access for linked sites choice, View only or Can edit, is applied to every site link this import creates. It starts on View only.

If your choices add up to more than 100 new records, Vome asks you to tick a confirmation first. That check exists because a large number almost always means the wrong column was matched.

Sites need the Enterprise or Ultimate plan. On the Recruit and Pro plans the Sites column has nothing to match against, so leave it out of your file.

5. What are the "Settings for all"?

These are the settings you would normally fill in one opportunity at a time. Set them once here and they apply to every opportunity in the import. You can change any of them per opportunity afterwards.

Schedule. Scheduling settings, and the commitment: one-time, or recurring with a number, a frequency and a duration. A Commitment column in your file overrides this per row.
Recruitment. A recruitment workflow, applied to every opportunity in the import. Whether applications are open, an application deadline and whether it is strict, default opportunity tags, and an age requirement.
Visibility. Public, semi-private or private, including the semi-private rules.
Communications. Whether the opportunity chatroom and the shift chatrooms are on.

6. What is not imported?

The importer creates the opportunity and its main content. It does not build the parts that need their own setup:

Cover photos. An imported opportunity uses its category's cover photo. Change it per opportunity afterwards if you want something specific.
Shifts. Import those separately, one opportunity at a time, with Import shifts from the Schedule.
Recurrence patterns. The commitment type imports, the pattern behind it does not. See the note above.
Landing page layouts. Customize those per opportunity once it exists.

7. Do the imported opportunities go live right away?

You decide, on the review step. Publish everything now is switched on by default, so if you change nothing, the whole batch goes live as soon as the import finishes.

Leave Publish everything now on and they are live immediately.
Switch it off and they are created as drafts, so you can look them over before anyone sees them.

If you publish immediately, Vome tells you first how many opportunities your followers will be emailed about. On a large batch that is worth reading before you press Import.

The review step also gives you the counts: how many opportunities, how many new categories, how many new opportunity tags, and how many rows are being skipped.

8. What if a title in my file already exists in Vome?

Vome warns you on the review step and lists the titles it recognised. It does not stop you.

An import never updates an existing opportunity. A repeated title is created as a second, separate opportunity. Nothing existing is changed, merged or overwritten. So if you are re-running a file to fix a few rows, remove the rows that already imported first.

Summary

Opportunities module, Add opportunity, then Import opportunities.
One row per opportunity, up to 500 rows, .xlsx or .csv. Title and Description are the only required columns.
Category, Coordinator, Watchers, Location type, Address, Opportunity tags, Sites and Commitment are optional. Separate multiple values in one cell with commas, semicolons or line breaks.
Location type and Commitment read everyday words in English and French, and a value Vome cannot read skips the row.
Names in your file are matched to Vome on step 2, where you match, create or skip each one. Coordinators and watchers can only be matched, never created.
Shared settings (schedule, recruitment, visibility, communications) are set once and apply to the whole batch.
Cover photos, shifts, recurrence patterns and page layouts are not imported.
Nothing is created until you press Import. Publish everything now is on by default, so switch it off if you want drafts.
A repeated title creates a new opportunity rather than updating the old one.

Importing opportunities from a spreadsheet