This guide is for course providers who keep company records in Cademy. It explains how to create or update many organisations at once from a CSV or Excel file: how to prepare the file, how Cademy decides whether a row is a new organisation or one you already have, how to run the import and how to check the result.
An organisation is a company record in Cademy. It holds details such as the company’s domains, billing email, billing address and VAT number, and contacts can be linked to it. Organisations explains how these records work.
The organisations import is available on every Cademy plan. To run it you need the Course Owner or System Admin role. Only a System Admin can open the Organisations page afterwards to look at the imported records.
If you are not sure which import you need, start with Choose an Import and Prepare Your Data.
What the import can and cannot do
Each row of your file is one organisation. A row either creates a new organisation or updates one you already have.
The import can fill in the organisation’s name, domains, tags, billing email, billing address, VAT number, created date and your custom organisation fields.
The import has no field for a parent organisation.
The import does not take a list of contacts. To set the organisation of many contacts from a file, use the contacts import, which has an Organisation field. See Import Contacts.
An import cannot be undone. Cademy has no option to reverse or cancel it once it has started.
Importing a domain can link existing contacts to the organisation. This happens when Automatically link contacts to organisations by domain is switched on in Settings > Organisations, a page for System Admins. Cademy then links contacts whose email address ends with that domain and who have no organisation yet. Domains that Cademy ignores for automatic linking, including those on your Ignored Domains list, are left out. When the setting is off, the import links no contacts.
Prepare your file
Save the file as CSV or Excel. In an Excel file, Cademy reads the first sheet only. Put the column headings in the first row. Each row below them is one organisation.
If your file has letters with accents or symbols, such as é or £, save it as Excel. Depending on the program that saved it, a CSV file is read with these characters wrong, for example Zoë as Zoë. An organisation name that is read wrong is saved that way, and Cademy cannot use it to find an organisation whose name is saved correctly.
The import window has a View example file link. It opens this example spreadsheet: organisations import example file. Some of its headings differ from the field names below, so Organisation Name, Domain (i.e. org website(s)) and Billing Address: Address Line 1 are not chosen for you when you use it: choose their columns by hand on the mapping screen, or rename the headings. To start from the example, copy it into a file of your own.
You can name your columns as you like. If a column heading is the same as one of the Cademy field names below, Cademy chooses that column for the field when you reach the mapping screen. Capital letters do not matter, and you can change any choice there.
Fields you can import
The import window does not mark any field as required, but every row needs an Organisation Name. A row without one fails. The fields are listed here in the order the mapping screen shows them.
Billing Address: Address Line 1, Billing Address: Address Line 2, Billing Address: City, Billing Address: Country, Billing Address: Postcode and Billing Address: Region - the six parts of the billing address, each in its own column.
Billing Email - saved as you typed it. Cademy does not check that it is a valid email address.
Cademy ID - the ID Cademy gave an organisation that already exists in your account. Cademy uses it to find the organisation to update, and it must match exactly, including capital and small letters. Leave it out when every row is a new organisation. “Where do I find an organisation’s Cademy ID?” below shows where to look it up.
Created date - the date and time the organisation was created, for example when you bring records from another system. The cell needs both a date and a time, for example 14/11/2025 09:30, and Cademy reads it in your account’s time zone. A date without a time is skipped. A new organisation without a created date gets the time of the import.
Domain (i.e. org website(s)) - the domain of the organisation’s website, for example example.com. For several domains, put them in one cell with a comma between them. You can paste a full web address: Cademy keeps only the domain, so https://www.example.com/about is saved as example.com. A value that is not a domain, such as an email address or a word without a dot, makes the row fail.
Organisation Name - the organisation’s name. Needed on every row.
Tags - one or more tag names in one cell. A name that matches a tag you already have uses that tag. Any other name creates a new tag.
VAT Number - saved as you typed it.
Your custom organisation fields are in the same list, under the name they have in your dashboard. These are the fields you add in Settings > Fields, on the Organisations tab. Add them before you import. Fields of these types can be imported: Text, Text Area, Date, Number, True/False (Boolean), Telephone, Email, Website, Address and Dropdown. An Address field appears as six parts, like the billing address. A Statement field holds no value, so it is not in the list.
Cademy reads the cells in this way:
A blank cell gives the field no value for that row.
A True/False (Boolean) field accepts yes, no, true, false, 1 or 0. In an Excel file, type these as text: a cell that Excel stores as FALSE or as the number 0 is read as blank.
A Dropdown field accepts only one of the options set up for that field. Capital letters do not matter.
For Created date and Date fields, you choose the format your file uses on the mapping screen. A date written in another format can be saved as the wrong date, so check that the format you choose matches the file.
In an Excel file, enter dates as text: format the column as Text before you type the dates. A cell that Excel stores as a date reaches Cademy as a number such as 45975.4, not as the date you see, and Sample Data on the mapping screen shows that number. Created date or a Date field is then saved as a date in 1970. In a CSV file every date is already text.
If Cademy cannot read a value for Created date or for a Date, Number, True/False (Boolean) or Dropdown field, it skips that value and still imports the row. Nothing reports the skipped value, so check a few imported organisations afterwards.
How Cademy finds and updates existing organisations
On the last screen of the import, the switch Update existing organisations decides what happens when a row belongs to an organisation you already have. The switch is on to begin with.
When the switch is on, Cademy looks for an existing organisation for each row in this order:
By Cademy ID, if the row has one and an organisation in your account has exactly that ID.
Otherwise by Organisation Name. The whole name must be the same as the existing name. Capital letters do not matter.
If Cademy finds an organisation, it updates it. If it finds none, it creates a new organisation. Use Cademy IDs only from organisations in the account you are importing into.
The Deduplication Logic box on that screen also lists Domains. A domain in your file does not find an existing organisation. A row whose name differs from the existing name creates a second organisation, even when the domain is the same. To update an organisation, give its row the organisation’s Cademy ID or its whole name as it is saved in Cademy.
When the switch is off, Cademy does not look for existing organisations. Every row with a name becomes a new organisation, including rows whose name you already have, and the Cademy ID column is ignored.
What an update replaces
An update does more than fill gaps. For each organisation it finds:
Organisation Name is replaced by the name in the row. This changes the name when the organisation was found by its Cademy ID.
Domains and tags are replaced by the values in the row. If the row has no value for them, or their fields are left on Do not import, the organisation’s existing domains or tags are removed.
Billing Email, VAT Number and Created date change only when the row has a value. A blank cell leaves the existing value.
The billing address is replaced as a whole when the row has a value for any of its six parts. Parts that are blank in the row become blank on the organisation.
Your custom organisation fields change only when the row has a value. A custom Address field is replaced as a whole, like the billing address.
Important: Before you update organisations that already have domains or tags, put their current domains and tags in the file and map both fields. Otherwise the update removes them.
Example: Northfield Training Ltd already exists with the domain northfield-training.example and the tag Client. You import a row with the same name, a new VAT number and no domain or tags. After the import the new VAT number is saved, and Northfield Training Ltd has no domain and no tags.
Tips before you import
Import a file with one or two rows first. Then check every field of those organisations before you import the rest.
Keep a copy of your file. If you are updating organisations, also keep a record of their current details, because an import cannot be undone.
Use Fixed value on the mapping screen for a field that must be the same for every organisation in the file, such as one tag.
Import the file
Open the Organisations import
Sign in to the Cademy admin dashboard at https://admin.cademy.io.
Select Settings in the main menu.
In the Settings menu, under Tools, select Imports. The page shows Start an Import at the top and Your Imports below it.
Select the Organisations Import card. The Import organisations window opens.
If Tools and Imports are not in the Settings menu, your role is Facilitator. Ask a System Admin or Course Owner on your account to run the import, or ask a System Admin to change your role.
Upload your file
Drag your file onto the area marked Drop or Select a file, or select Select file and choose it. Upload one file at a time.
Wait while Cademy reads the file. The window then changes to Configure your import by itself.
If Cademy shows There was an issue processing your file. Please try again., check that the first sheet has a row of headings and at least one row below it, then upload the file again.
Map your columns
Mapping tells Cademy which column of your file fills which field. The Configure your import screen lists the Cademy fields in alphabetical order in a table with four columns: Cademy Field, Value Source, File Column and Sample Data.
Find Organisation Name. If Cademy matched it to a column, Value Source shows CSV column and File Column shows that column. If not, set Value Source to CSV column, then replace Select a column in File Column with the column that holds your organisation names. Sample Data shows values from the first five rows of the column, so you can confirm the choice.
Set every other field you want to import in the same way.
For Tags, Created date and Date fields, a second list appears in File Column. For Tags, choose the character that separates the tag names in a cell: a comma, a pipe or a new line. For dates, choose the format your file uses. The first option in each list is selected to begin with. For Created date the first option reads a two-digit year, so for a value such as 14/11/2025 09:30 choose D/M/YYYY HH:mm. Choose the column first, because choosing a different column sets the second list back to its first option.
Leave fields you do not want to import on Do not import. If you are updating organisations, read “What an update replaces” above before you leave Domain (i.e. org website(s)) or Tags on Do not import.
Select Next.
Always map Organisation Name. The window lets you continue without it, but then no organisation is imported.
Value Source options
Do not import - the import takes no value for this field from your file.
CSV column - the field takes its value from a column of your file. Choose the column under File Column. The choice has this name for Excel files too.
Fixed value - every row gets the same value, which you enter or choose in the table.
Choose the update option and start the import
The last screen shows We will attempt to import followed by a number of records. This is the number of rows Cademy found under your headings. Blank rows are not counted. Check it against your file.
Leave Update existing organisations on to update organisations you already have. Switch it off to create every row as a new organisation. “How Cademy finds and updates existing organisations” above explains both.
Select Import Data. The window closes and Cademy shows Import is being processed.
To change a mapping before you start the import, select Back. The mapping screen then returns to its starting choices, so set every field again, including the tag separator and the date formats, before you select Next.
Check the results
Stay on Settings > Imports. The newest import is the top row of Your Imports, and yours has the type Organisations.
STATUS shows PROCESSING while Cademy works through the file and PROCESSED when it has finished. Cademy’s own message says to allow a few minutes. The table refreshes every 10 seconds while an import is processing.
PROCESSED does not mean that every row succeeded, so always check the FAILED column.
An organisations import does not change to a failed status. If it stays at PROCESSING and no email arrives, look for its organisations on the Organisations page, which a System Admin can open, before you upload the file again, and contact Cademy Support with the import’s type and the date and time shown in Your Imports.
IMPORTED is the number of rows that did not fail. Each of them created or updated an organisation. If the number is above 0, select it to open Imported Organisations, a list of those organisations, each with its Cademy ID shown in capital letters. A System Admin can select the eye button beside an organisation to open it in a new tab.
FAILED is the number of rows that were not imported. If the number is above 0, select it to open Failed Organisations, which shows the ROW NUMBER and the REASON for each. Row 1 is the first record below your headings, which is row 2 of a spreadsheet with no empty rows. Blank rows are not counted.
Why a row fails
Organisation name is required - the row has no organisation name, or Organisation Name was not mapped.
An unknown error occurred importing this row - Cademy could not save the row. Check the domain cell first: every domain must look like example.com, and several domains need a comma between them. If the domains are correct and the row fails again, contact Cademy Support with the row and the reason shown.
To try again, put only the corrected rows in a new file and import that file. If you import the whole file again with the switch on, the rows that worked the first time update the same organisations again. With the switch off, they create duplicates.
Cademy also emails the user who started the import when it has finished, as long as that user still has access to the account. Use Your Imports, not the email, to check the numbers and the failed rows.
A System Admin can see the imported organisations on the Organisations page in the main menu. If Organisations is not in the menu, it has been hidden from it: look under More.
Related guides
Choose an Import and Prepare Your Data - an overview of Cademy’s imports.
Organisations - view, edit and delete organisations, and set up automatic linking of contacts.
Import Contacts - import contacts.
Import Courses - import courses.
Import Course Dates - import course dates.
Import Bookings and Orders - import bookings with their orders.
Import Registrations: Add Learners or Update Registration Fields - import learners without orders.
Frequently asked questions
Which fields are required when importing organisations?
Only Organisation Name. The import window marks no field as required, but a row without a name fails with the reason Organisation name is required.
Can the import update organisations I already have?
Yes. Leave Update existing organisations switched on. Cademy finds each organisation by its Cademy ID, or otherwise by its whole name. Put the organisation’s current domains and tags in the file, because an update replaces both.
Why did the import create a duplicate organisation?
A row creates a new organisation when the switch is off, or when neither its Cademy ID nor its whole name matches an organisation you already have. A matching domain does not prevent a duplicate. A small difference in the name, such as “Ltd” at the end, makes it a different name.
Which file types can I import?
CSV and Excel files. In an Excel file, Cademy reads the first sheet only.
Where do I find an organisation’s Cademy ID?
A System Admin can open the organisation from the Organisations page: the ID is the part of the page’s address after /organisations/, up to the next / if there is one. The Imported Organisations list of an earlier import also shows each organisation’s ID, but in capital letters. IDs that Cademy creates use small letters, so change the letters to small letters before you put an ID from that list in your file.
Does the import link contacts to the organisations?
Only through domains, and only when Automatically link contacts to organisations by domain is switched on in Settings > Organisations. Cademy then links contacts whose email address ends with an imported domain and who have no organisation yet. To set the organisation of specific contacts from a file, use the contacts import instead.
Can I undo an organisations import?
No. Cademy has no option to reverse an import. Import one or two rows first and check them before you import the whole file.