Ever wanted to have all the data in your Excel spreadsheets conveniently located in a monday board? No need to worry, as you can easily import everything you need from your Excel files directly into your monday account.

Import your data from an Excel file

To start, click on your profile picture on the top right corner of your screen and click on Import Data:

Next, click on Excel in the popup window that opens up:

Drag your Excel file into the popup in the center of the screen or select the Click to browse option to choose the spreadsheet you want to upload. For the import to work properly, the spreadsheet must have more than one column. 

Once you've selected your file, your data will be uploaded. Click on Let's customize your new board to make sure everything appears exactly how you want on your monday board.

Select the row in your spreadsheet that you want to become the column titles, and then click on Next. Remember that everything above your first row will not be imported into your board.

On the next popup, select the column in your spreadsheet that will become the first column in your board (which will become the names of your items), and then click on Next.

Our system will suggest column types that it detects are a good fit for your data, but you can change them manually by clicking on the drop-down menu for each column and selecting.

You can only import columns as a Number, Status, Email, Date, or Text column. You can also change the column type after the import is done.

If your column has 9 or fewer labels, the column suggestion on your imported sheet will be status. If your columns have more than 9 labels, the column suggestion on the import will be text.

When you're done, click on Create Board.

That's it! Now you can see all of your data in a monday board.

Note: When importing dates, they must be formatted in ISO format. This means that they must show 4 digits for the year, 2 digits for the month, and 2 digits for the day. For example: 2021-10-23.

Import data into an existing board

You can import data from an Excel sheet or a CSV into a pre-existing board as well. Here's how:

Import from Excel or CSV

For this example, let's say you need to import the following Excel sheet into your existing board:

Click on the arrow beside the New Item button at the top of the board and select Import Items from the dropdown menu.

Your New Item button may be called New Contact, New Project, or something similar.

On the next screen, you can either drag your Excel or CSV file into the frame or choose click to browse to select the document from your computer. Once the file has been successfully uploaded, click on Next.

Choose the column from your Excel document that you would like to appear as the item name on your monday.com board:

On the next screen, you will be asked to map the columns in your Excel document to the columns on your monday.com board. Columns that you do not map will not be imported.

The available column types for importing include the Numbers, Text, Date, Email, Dropdown, Timeline, and Phone columns. Any other column types will not be updated through the import but you can change the column type later.

Make sure that your Excel column data matches the type of column you need in your monday board. For example, if you are importing a Due Date from Excel, then you need to add a Date column on your board before starting the import process.

How to handle duplicates

The next step will ask you to choose how to handle duplicates. 

This step is important in order to make sure you are uploading your data exactly how need it to be included in monday. To help illustrate exactly how each option works, we will use an example of an Excel sheet that features information about actors.

Create new items

When you create new items, they will be added to a new group. 

In our example, we would like to add data pertaining to actors to a new group on our board. We have prepared the columns on the board by choosing the types of columns that suit the data and renaming the columns to make things clear. For example, for the actors' ages, we added a Numbers column and renamed the column to "Age." 

Skip items

When you select a specific column in this step, rows in Excel that have a value that matches an item in the specified monday column will be skipped and will not be imported from Excel. 

In our example, we will import a new version of the Excel sheet that includes the same information as previously added in addition to some new actors and their corresponding data. By choosing the Skip Items option, only the new actors will be added to the board. They will be added to a new group, but you can later merge them into the same group if you'd prefer. The previously added actors will not be affected by this step.

Overwrite existing items

If you import an Excel file that includes rows that already exist as items on the monday board but feature new data, the items in the monday board will be overwritten.

New data will be added as in previous steps. However, existing data will be overwritten -- if it is matching the Excel data, it will look the same. If it has changed, it will be updated to reflect the Excel data.

If you have new columns in the Excel sheet, you will need to add new corresponding columns on your monday board in order to make sure this new information is included.

If there were any changes in the existing columns, these will be overwritten as long as the first column matches. For example, if an actor's age changed in the Excel sheet, the new number will override the number listed in the existing monday column.

In our example, we will import another new version of the Excel sheet, but this time the actors that are already featured in our original group will have additional information. We have added a Timeline column for the "Latest film run start date" and "Latest film run end date" to be listed.

Once your import has finished, you'll see that the new data was added to the new columns.

Import parameters

When importing a file to your board, there are two sets of parameters to consider in terms of how many columns and rows can be imported at a time.

• Import to a new board - In this case, you can select a file containing up to 100 columns and 8000 rows, however, only the first 50 columns will be imported. If you try to upload a file that exceeds this limit, you'll see an error message asking you to reduce the file size first. 
  
  

• Import to an existing board - In this case, you will be able to import up to 100 columns and 8000 rows. If your file contains more than this, you'll see an error message asking you to reduce the file size.
  
  

Copy and paste multiple items

You can easily copy and paste multiple items from your Excel spreadsheet directly into your monday board. Check out this article to see how simple it is.

Limitations

• Before importing your Excel file, please make sure that the spreadsheet isn't a protected sheet, otherwise the data will not upload to your monday account.
• If your Excel spreadsheet contains multiple tabs, only the first tab will import. Subitems from Excel will be imported as items onto your monday board, after which you can manually convert them to subitems. 
• Copying and pasting multiple items only available for the first column on an existing board, meaning that you cannot paste a list of data into other columns. 
• The following file types are supported in the import: .xlsx, .xls, and .csv. As of now, XLSM files are not supported.
• Data cannot be imported to the Updates Section. The data will be imported to a column on the board, after which you can change the column type or move the data around as needed

Tip: Want to master importing and exporting data from Excel and more? Take our self-paced monday academy course and earn a badge when you complete it!