The Teams pane of the Import / Export wizard is designed to let you import and export basic information about teams. 


By basic information we mean:

  • team numbers are in use (ie active or not)
  • region associated with a team
  • the challenge a team is solving
  • the level of a team based on the age or grade of the kids on the team
  • any team name a team may have chosen
  • updating the location (ie city or town) of the organization supporting the team
  • the organization name for a team number


While you can enter this type of information for each team using other picks on the Teams menu, Import lets you do this from a spread sheet for a collection of teams.


Export is the reverse operation to Import.  It will create a spread sheet containing this basic information.  This might be useful as you try to create a schedule for a tournament.


Importing Team Information


The page will import team information from a spread sheet in comma-separated-value (.CSV) format.  A number of spread sheet tools such as Microsoft Excel are capable of generating such a file (save the file in this format).  


Each row in the import file represents a different team with the first row being a header (naming what is in each column).  Import will import the following fields:

  • team number (xxx-xxxxx): this is a required column and must match the team number of a team in your affiliate for the current year
  • active: (required column) indicates if the team number is in use or not
  • region: (optional column) indicates the team's region
  • letter: (optional column) is the letter (A, B, C, D, E, PO, RS) of the team's chosen challenge or the name of this year's challenge
  • level: (optional column) specifies the team's level (RS,EL,ML,SL,UL)  [you can also use the full name such as elementary]
  • team name: (optional column) specifies the team name
  • location: (optional column) gives the town where the team's organization is located (do not include state, province, etc)
  • organization: (optional column) specifies the organization name (eg Smalltown Middle School)


To import team information go through the following sequence:


  1. create a .CSV format file
  2. use the Browse button to select the file you created
  3. the website will look at your file an try to match your file's columns to the fields listed above
  4. you can change the column to field mapping by using the drop downs in the Your File Column column (use not matched if you want the importer to ignore a field)
  5. analyze any messages for changes to make to your file (note that the importer will make no changes if it encounters errors in your import file)


Your file does not need to contain every team in your affiliate.  Teams not included are not affected.

Only fields you list as being imported will be updated.  Any field marked not matched will not be affected.


That said, be cautious using import as it can override information that has already been entered.  Because of this, import is initially disabled.  You can enable and disable it using Affiliates=>manage affiliate.


Import has a few check boxes that control processing the Organization column. Using them you can get various behaviors.

  1. if you do not have an Organization column or indicate not matched:
    import will not attempt to match the organization name in our database with the field provided.
  2. if you do have an Organization column and specify it on import:
    • by default (neither of the check boxes check), import will issue a warning when the organization in our database does not match what you supply.  A warning will NOT stop the import.
    • by checking issue error if organization does not match, a mismatch between the the organization in our database and the import file will issue an error, thus stopping the import.
    • by checking override organization with import, if the import is successful the organization column in the import file will replace the information in our database.  Do this with caution as you are replacing the name of the organization in all other areas of DMS such as clarifications and registration for Global Finals.


Export Team Information


The page will export team information as a spread sheet in comma-separated-value (.CSV) format.  Such a file can be viewed by a number of spread sheet tools such as Microsoft Excel.


The exporter has a single control that affects its operation: Region drop down.  If you specify a region, only that region will be included in the spread sheet.  If you specify no region, all teams in the affiliate will be included.