CiviCRM

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.

1. Go to Reports > My Reports.
2. Click New Report.
3. Create Filter to suit, or remove all filtering settings.
4. On the Columns tab, select the following:
   1. Participant ID
   2. Event
   3. Status
   4. Role
5. Click Actions > Save.
6. Click Actions > Export as CSV.

Fix Issue

My issue was that Participant Role numbers needed to be amended.

1. Go to Administer > CiviEvent > Participant Roles.
2. 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.

1. Go to Events > Import Participants.
2. Choose the file
3. Select First row contains column headers
4. On Duplicate Entries, select Update
5. Map columns as follows:
   1. Participant ID → Participant ID
   2. Event → Event Title
   3. Status → Participant Status
   4. Role → Participant Role
6. Save as a new field mapping
7. Proceed with the import.

I was able to update 4,000 participant records in one go, without any web server issues.

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