When your organization includes a large number of perimeters, filling in custom properties and contacts individually can quickly become time-consuming. The import/export feature lets you prepare your data in a file, review it outside the application, and push all changes in a single operation.
⚠️ Prerequisite: The feature for importing properties and contacts from scopes is available to both global and local administrators.
The only difference for local administrators is that they do not have access to restricted properties.
1. Export an organization tree's perimeters
Exporting your perimeters generates a reference file listing all the perimeters you have access to, along with their custom properties and contacts.
This is the recommended starting point before any perimeter property and contact import: it ensures you are working with the correct file structure and the right perimeter IDs.
To export an organization tree:
Go to the Organization module.
Select the tree you want to export.
Click on the double-arrow menu in the top right corner.
Click Export perimeters/groupings XLS.
Once the export is complete, the generated file is named "Tenacy Perimeter Export" with the name of the tree and today's date (day, month, year format). It contains one sheet for perimeters and a second one for instructions and the list of your custom properties. Each perimeter appears on its own row. Contacts associated with each perimeter appear in a dedicated column, with email addresses separated by commas within a single cell.
2. Check available properties and values before preparing your import file
Before editing the exported file to prepare your import, make sure that the custom properties you want to fill in already exist in the application, along with the values you intend to assign to them (Cog wheel > Properties).
⚠️ The property and contact import does not allow you to create new custom properties. It can only populate perimeters with properties that are already configured in the application. Similarly, for single-choice and multiple-choice properties, only values that already exist in the application can be imported.
To minimize the risk of errors, your export file lists your custom properties and their available values in the “instructions” sheet.
🚫 If a value in your import file does not match any existing value for a single-choice or multiple-choice property, the import generates an error on that row. All other rows in the file are imported normally: only the row with the error is skipped. Check the exact spelling and capitalization of values in Cog wheel > Properties before importing your file.
3. Prepare your property and contact import file
Once you have exported the file and verified the available properties, you can edit the file to prepare your import. The outcome of the import depends precisely on what you enter in each column and each cell.
What the property and contact import can do
Update contacts or the value of an existing custom property on one or more perimeters.
Delete contacts or a property value on a perimeter, by leaving the corresponding cell empty.
Create new perimeters, subject to your organization's contractual credit.
What the property and contact import cannot do
Delete an existing perimeter: a perimeter present in the application but absent from the import file is ignored. It is neither modified nor deleted.
Create new custom properties: properties must be created in the application beforehand via Cog wheel > Properties.
Column and cell behavior during import
The table below details the effect of each column and cell configuration on your perimeter data during import:
Configuration in the import file | Effect on perimeters in the application |
Property column absent from the file | No change: the existing value of that property is preserved on all perimeters |
Empty cell in a present column | The value of that property is deleted on the relevant perimeter |
Cell filled with an existing value | The value of that property is updated or created on the relevant perimeter |
Cell filled with a non-existing value (single-choice or multiple-choice) | An error is generated on that row; all other rows in the file are imported normally |
⚠️ An empty cell causes the corresponding data to be deleted on the perimeter, not ignored. To keep an existing value unchanged, leave it as-is in the import file.
If you do not want to modify a property on any perimeter in the tree, you can also remove the entire column from the file: it will be ignored during import, with no effect on existing data.
Property type rules during import
Free-text property: any value entered in the import file is accepted.
Single-choice property: the imported value entirely replaces the existing value on the perimeter. The value must exactly match a value already created in Cog wheel > Properties, otherwise an error is generated on that row.
Multiple-choice property: the imported value entirely replaces all existing values on the perimeter. Each value entered must exactly match a value already created in Cog wheel > Properties, otherwise an error is generated on that row.
4. Import your property and contact file
Once your file is ready and the properties and values have been verified in Cog wheel > Properties, import the file into the Organization module:
Go to the Organization module.
Click on the double-arrow menu in the top right corner.
Click Import perimeters/groupings XLS.
Select your import file.
A confirmation message appears.
💡 Only the perimeter ID is required in the import file. All custom property columns are optional.
What you get after importing perimeters
Once the import is complete, the perimeters in the organization tree reflect the data from the imported file:
Properties are updated.
Values corresponding to empty cells are deleted.
New perimeters included in the file are created if your contractual credit allows.
Perimeters absent from the import file are not affected and retain their existing data.
If a row contains an error on a single-choice or multiple-choice property, only that row is skipped. The rest of the import is applied normally.
Imports appear in your logs (Cog wheel > Logs) and reports (Cog wheel > Reports).
Failed imports do not appear in the logs but are included in an error report ( Cog wheel > Reports).