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Bulk Update People

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Breeze makes it easy to update information for many people at once! This article will guide you through the process of downloading an Excel file, making changes, and uploading it back into Breeze. 

How to Bulk Update People

  1. Download the Template:

    1. Go to Account Settings (⚙️) > Bulk Tasks > Update People.
    2. Click "Download Template File." This file contains almost all the information you store for your people in Breeze (except files and photos).
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  2. Make Your Changes:
     

    • Important:
      • Keep the "Breeze ID" column. This is how Breeze identifies each person.
      • You can delete other columns to prevent those fields from being updated.
      • You can delete entire rows to exclude people from this update.
      • It is recommended to update less than 1000 profiles at a time in a single update people attempt. Otherwise, it is highly likely this attempt will time out.
    • Caution: If you delete data within a cell (like someone's phone number), it will be deleted in Breeze too!
    • Date Fields: To avoid year formatting issues (like 1976 turning into 2076), format date columns as Date > MM/DD/YYYY before saving.

  3. Save as a CSV File:

    • Crucial: Save as a normal CSV file NOT UTF-8. This ensures all your data is imported correctly. Here's how:

    • On Windows:

      • Go to File > Save As.
      • In the dropdown menu, choose "CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) (*.csv)."
      • Click "Save."

    • On Mac using Numbers (Apple's spreadsheet software):

      • Go to File > Export To > CSV...
      • Make sure "Text Encoding" is set to "Unicode (UTF-8)."
      • Click "Next..." to choose a save location and file name, then click "Export."

  4. Import the Updated File:

    • Back in Breeze, go to Account Settings (⚙️) > Bulk Tasks > Update People.
    • Click "Import Updated People."
    • Breeze will update your people's information based on your changes!

 

You are free to delete both columns and rows from this file; the only required column is "Breeze ID" as this is what associates the row with the correct person. Deleting columns excludes those fields from the update. Deleting rows excludes those people from the update.

The update will reflect exactly what's in the file you import. If you delete data in a cell of the spreadsheet, it will be deleted from Breeze (e.g. if you delete a phone number for a specific person, not the entire phone number column, that phone number will be removed from Breeze when the file is imported).

For details on how to format your data, please follow the guidelines listed for importing people.

1 This file contains nearly all of the data you're storing for the people in your database. File fields and photos cannot be updated through this method.
When making your changes in Excel to a date field, and then saving to a .csv file, the 4-digit year will reformat to a 2-digit year. To correct this, you can format the date columns to be formatted as Date > MM/DD/YYYY and save it as a .csv file from there. This will prevent the automatic reformatting to a 2-digit year, which will turn 1976 into 2076 when imported into Breeze.

Internal Note: Only Breeze Support users can see Family Role and Family ID columns in our exports and bulk update templates. These columns are not available to customers, as it's very easy to mess up your data if edited incorrectly.

Here is an example of deleting a column from Breeze which will prevent any information in that column from being updated: 

 

Here is an example of deleting the contents of a cell which will delete the information in Breeze: 

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