Importing Assets via CSV

Bulk import your existing equipment into DREAM. No template required — upload your CSV and map your columns to our fields.

Quick Answer

Upload your CSV, map your columns to DREAM's fields, set per-row options, and confirm — no strict template required.

DREAM's CSV Import wizard migrates your existing data without requiring you to reformat anything first. You upload whatever CSV you have, then map your columns to our fields.

Before you start

Enable CSV import in Settings → CSV Import first. The button only appears for admins and editors.

The wizard imports into things that already exist — it can't create them on the fly. Set these up in Settings first so everything is ready to pick:

—Categories & Item Types — you choose an existing Category and Item Type at Setup, and the import locks every row in the batch to them. Importing across multiple categories? Run the import once per category.
—Your Item Type's fields — the fields you can map a column to come from the Item Type. Only the fields you have turned on for it (Purchase Price, Serial Number, Expiry Date, In-Service Date, and so on) appear as mapping options — so enable everything you need before importing, or those columns will have nowhere to map.
—People, Locations, Vendors & Cost Centres — the Assignment, Vendor, and Cost Centre pickers only list records that already exist. Populate them first so they are there to select during the import.

Import steps

Setup

Choose the Category and Item Type, then upload your CSV. Tick My file has a header rowif your first row contains column names — we'll show those names above each mapping dropdown.

Map columns

For each CSV column, pick which DREAM field it maps to. Columns you don't need can be left as — Ignore — (kept visible for reference) or hidden entirely with — Remove (hide) —to declutter wide CSVs. Per-row settings let you set Status, Assignment, Vendor, and Cost Centre individually or in batches using the "Set all on this page" header dropdowns.

Confirm

Tick the acknowledgement and review the row count before committing.

Importing

The system processes your file row by row. Live progress is shown.

Results

Get a summary of successful imports and any rows that failed validation. Failed rows show the specific error so you can fix and re-import.

💡 Tip: Hidden columns can be restored at any time during mapping — a small "N columns hidden · Show all" link appears above the table when you've hidden any.

Shortcut: assign by Employee Number

Instead of setting assignments by hand, map one of your columns to the "Employee Number → assign to person" field. For every row whose value matches a person's Employee Number, DREAM automatically assigns that asset to the person and marks it In Service — no manual picking.

A banner tells you how many rows matched. Rows where the number matches no one, or matches more than one person, are left unassigned and flagged so you can handle them yourself. The employee number itself is never stored on the asset — it is only used to find the person.

💡 Tip: This is the fastest way to onboard a whole department at once: put each person's employee number beside their gear in your spreadsheet, map that one column, and every row lands on the right person, In Service, in a single import.

A note on Status

The Status dropdown shows In Service instead of "Active" — this is a display label change to better reflect what the status means (the asset is in operational use). Underlying data and behaviour are unchanged.