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Importing Accessions

Bring a spreadsheet of accessions into your archive — useful when you're migrating from a legacy system or you have a backlog of metadata-only records waiting for digitised files.

Bringing a register in needs an archivist seat — reviewers and volunteers aren't offered the page.

Supported formats​

The import wizard accepts spreadsheets in these formats:

FormatFile extension
CSV (comma-separated).csv
Tab-delimited.tsv, .txt
Excel.xlsx

Tab-delimited files (the default output from many archival management systems) are detected automatically. The wizard shows you which format was recognised and lets you correct it if needed.

Required and optional columns​

Your spreadsheet must include:

FieldRequiredWhat it is
Accession number✓Your institutional accession identifier (e.g. "2026/001", "ACC-042")
Name / Title✓A brief name or description for the accession
DepositorPerson or organisation that donated / deposited the material
Depositor emailEmail address — used to match or create a depositor record in the system
Date receivedISO date (YYYY-MM-DD) or just the year (YYYY)
DescriptionLonger narrative description of the accession's contents
NotesInternal notes (e.g. "requires conservation before digitisation")

Column names are case-insensitive and flexible — common aliases like "AccNo", "Source", "Email" are detected automatically.

Step-by-step import​

An accessions import walks six named steps — Choose · Upload · Map · Preview · Bring in · Done. (A catalogue-records import walks a seventh, Check, which a flat register of accessions has nothing to answer.)

Choose​

Open Import in the sidebar, or Import register above the table on the Register tab of Accessions, and pick Accessions as what you're bringing in.

Upload​

  1. Drag your file onto the upload area or click Browse files.
  2. The wizard detects the format and shows a preview: column names, detected delimiter and character encoding, row count — each of which you can correct.
  3. The published file-size, row-count and page-count limits are printed under the file input.

Map​

The wizard shows three buckets:

  • Mapped columns (on the right) — fields the system recognised. You can edit the mapping if the auto-detection missed it.
  • Unmapped columns (on the left) — columns the system didn't recognise. Click Ignore to skip them, or Map to assign them to a canonical field.
  • Unfilled required fields (at the bottom) — "Accession number" or "Name" still unmapped. You must assign these before proceeding.

Once the mapping is correct, you can optionally save this mapping as a profile (name and store it) to reuse on the next file from the same source system.

Preview​

The preview shows:

  • Row count — how many accessions will be imported
  • Collisions — accession numbers already in your system (existing records) or duplicated within the file
  • Depositor summary — how many depositors will be matched to existing records, created new, or flagged for review
  • Sample rows — a preview of the first few records

If there are accession number collisions, choose a collision policy:

  • Skip — don't import rows with numbers that already exist; keep the existing records untouched
  • Suffix — import the row anyway, but rename it to <number> (import) to avoid the collision

Bring in, and Done​

Review the collision policy and any warnings, then Bring in — the verb the wizard uses throughout. Large files run server-side and survive a closed tab. The Done screen names any sheets left out, offers a row-by-row reconciliation report against the source file, and the import can be undone in one action if it went wrong.

The accessions are created as draft records with no files attached. They're now ready for you to add digitised files to them.

What gets imported​

Each row becomes a new accession record with:

  • Accession number — from your spreadsheet, checked for collisions
  • Name — the title field from your data
  • Description — the description field, if present
  • Date received — parsed flexibly (year-only, UK DD/MM/YYYY, ISO formats all work)
  • Depositor — matched or created based on:
    1. Legacy reference (if your data has a depositor_id-style field)
    2. Email address exact match (case-insensitive)
    3. Name exact match after normalisation (trimmed, collapsed whitespace)
    4. Create new (if no match found)
  • Notes — stored as internal provenance notes

What does NOT get imported​

Imported accessions are draft records with no files. They appear on your Accessions list with status Draft and file count 0 files. You can then:

  • Add files to them when the digitised originals are available
  • Edit their metadata directly (click the title to rename, expand fields to edit)
  • Assign them to a fond in your archival hierarchy

Common questions​

Can I import accessions without an accession number? No — accession number is required. If your data has some rows without numbers, they'll be flagged as skipped during the preview, and you can edit your spreadsheet to add placeholder numbers or omit those rows.

What if my dates are in a format the wizard doesn't recognise? The wizard tries to parse year-only (YYYY), ISO (YYYY-MM-DD), and UK (DD/MM/YYYY) formats. If a date doesn't parse, it's stored as null and you can edit it in the accession afterwards. The preview shows which dates failed to parse.

Can I re-use the same mapping file for a second import? Yes — after the first import, the wizard shows saved mapping profiles in the Map step, and the import page lets you rename, delete or look back at earlier versions of one. Pick your profile from the dropdown and it pre-fills all your column assignments, then proceed. You can update a profile to a new version if your source system's columns change slightly.

What happens if I import the same accession number twice by accident? The collision policy prevents it. Choose Skip to keep your existing record, or Suffix to import both (the second gets renamed with "(import)"). Either way, you won't have duplicates.

How do I import with a custom set of fields? Custom fields are not imported automatically — only the standard accession fields listed above. After import, you can add files and fill custom fields in the wizard or edit the accession directly.

See also​