Updating participant information
For various reasons you might want to update multiple participant information in one go. For example, I had created 50 Participant Roles, but hadn't included a leading zero for the Participant Role values under 10, which meant that reporting didn't work properly. This article describes the process that I used to change all the values and re-import the participant information.
Export existing data
Start by logging on and going to Components > CiviCRM.
- Go to Reports > My Reports.
- Click New Report.
- Create Filter to suit, or remove all filtering settings.
- On the Columns tab, select the following:
- Participant ID
- Event
- Status
- Role
- Click Actions > Save.
- Click Actions > Export as CSV.
Fix Issue
My issue was that Participant Role numbers needed to be amended.
- Go to Administer > CiviEvent > Participant Roles.
- Change all single number values to double number (e.g. 1 becomes 01)
Import
IMPORTANT: Always create a backup of the data first. Now you are ready to import participant data back in.
- Go to Events > Import Participants.
- Choose the file
- Select First row contains column headers
- On Duplicate Entries, select Update
- Map columns as follows:
- Participant ID → Participant ID
- Event → Event Title
- Status → Participant Status
- Role → Participant Role
- Save as a new field mapping
- Proceed with the import.
I was able to update 4,000 participant records in one go, without any web server issues.
Thanks for visiting,
Steven