About

The Imports page brings every bulk import of content into one place: a CSV file, a Google Drive folder, a OneDrive folder. You start an import, follow it while it runs, and open it afterwards to see what was created and what failed.

Open it from the administration panel: click your avatar, choose "Settings", then "Advanced" and "Imports".

The Imports page in the administration panel: a table of imports with their status, type, destination space and counts

The imports table

Each row is one import, with:

Status: Queued, Running, Finished, Error or Cancelled.
Type: CSV, Google Drive, OneDrive or Lotus Notes.
Title and Destination space.
Total, Imported and Errors: the number of items found, the number of articles created, and the number of items that failed.
Created by and Created at.

The table refreshes on its own while an import runs, so you do not need to reload the page. Use "Filter" to show only some statuses, for example the imports still running or the ones that ended in error.

Start an import

Click "New import" and choose a source. Two fields are common to every source:

Destination space: the space where the articles are created.
Content owner: the user set as owner of every created article. Choose a real person, or a service account, who will maintain this content.

Then click "Start import". The import is queued and starts as soon as a worker is free.

From a CSV file

Each row of the file becomes one article. In addition to the common fields:

Give the import a Title: it names the row in the imports table.
Choose a Template if the articles should follow one. Without a template, plain articles are created.
Set a Maximum number of rows to try the import on a sample first. Leave it empty to import the whole file.
Drop the CSV file. Elium detects the Character set and the Column separator (comma, semicolon or tab). Adjust them if the preview looks wrong.
In Fields mapping, match each column of the file to an Elium field. Exactly one column must be mapped to the Title. Columns are grouped into article fields, categories (each column feeds one tag category) and technical fields such as the External ID. Choose "Skip this column" for columns you do not need.

Use the first row of your file for column names: the mapping form shows them as labels.

From a Google Drive folder

Select the Folder to import. Every file in the folder and its subfolders becomes an article that holds the file, and the folder structure is kept.

Tick "Import Google Documents as articles" to convert Google Docs into native Elium articles, with their text and formatting, instead of attaching them as files. Native articles are searchable and readable by AI assistants; attached files are indexed for search only.

From a OneDrive folder

Select the Folder to import. Files in the folder and its subfolders become articles, and the folder structure is kept.

From a Lotus Notes database

Lotus Notes migrations are prepared with our team, who configure the import with you. Contact support@elium.com.

Follow an import

Click a row to open the import details. The header shows where the import stands: queued and waiting to discover items, importing 12 of 62, finished with 3 errors, and so on.

Three cards give the context:

Source: the type, who started it and when, and for a CSV import the source file, which stays available for download.
Destination: the space and the content owner.
Imported items: one row per item with its status (New, Pending, Success or Error), its title, which links to the created article, and its External ID. Hover over a failed item to read the error message. Filter the list by status to see the failures only.

Restart, cancel or reset

The "Actions" menu of an import offers, depending on its status:

Restart, when an import ended in error, was cancelled, or finished with errors. Pending and failed items are processed again. Articles already imported are kept as they are.
Cancel, when an import is queued or running. The import stops after the current item. Articles already imported are kept; pending items are dropped.
Reset, when an import is finished, in error or cancelled. The import runs again from the start. Articles created by the first run stay in the space, so use it when the first run produced little, or after cleaning up.

After the import

The articles appear in the destination space with the chosen owner. For a Drive or OneDrive import, the folder tree is available in the space, where you can tag or move the imported files in bulk. Imported documents do not appear in the activity feed, so they do not flood the homepage of your users.