Import members via CSV/Excel

What is this?

With the member import you bring whole member lists into Chorilo in one step. This is the fastest method when you:

• Switch from another tool (Excel, ChoirGenius, ChurchTools etc.)
• Set up a choir new in Chorilo and already have a club list
• Create larger member groups at once (e.g. after an association restructuring)

Instead of typing every member individually, you upload a CSV or Excel file — Chorilo creates all members in one go.

How to import members

1. Open your choir and go to Members > Import members.
2. Download the template (CSV or Excel) — it contains all supported columns.
3. Enter your member data into the template — or upload your existing list directly.
4. Upload the file. Chorilo shows you a preview with all detected columns.
5. Map unknown columns — for example "Email address" to the field "Email".
6. Check duplicates — Chorilo marks possible duplicates based on the email.
7. Choose whether to send invitation emails.
8. Confirm the import. Members are created in the background; you receive an email with the result.

Supported fields

Chorilo supports during import among others:

• First name, last name
• Email address
• Voice (e.g. soprano 1, alto 2)
• Role (e.g. music librarian)
• Permission group
• Date of birth
• Address (street, postal code, city, country)
• Phone, mobile
• Join date
• Status (active, guest, on leave)
• Custom member fields (if created)

Tips for preparing your file

• One row per member, columns with clear names.
• Name voices exactly — use the spelling stored in your choir under "Manage voices" (e.g. "Soprano 1", not "S1").
• Date in format YYYY-MM-DD (e.g. 1985-03-22).
• Leave columns empty when the information is not available for a member — Chorilo leaves the field empty.
• Save special characters in UTF-8, otherwise umlauts will be broken.

Permission

You need the permission members.edit. By default the choir director and board have this permission.

Tips

• Do a test import beforehand with only 3-5 members to check that the column mapping fits.
• Import without email dispatch when you want to clean up data first — you can send invitations any time later.
• Create custom fields (e.g. "membership number", "T-shirt size") before the import so they are imported directly.
• Save your original file as a backup — if something goes wrong, you can run the import cleanly again.