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Importing and Syncing Users from Another Database

You can quickly define users in PolicyTech by exporting their information from another database, such as a network directory or human resources database, and then importing that information into the PolicyTech database. The import process consists of the following:

Exporting information from the user database as a tab-delimited text file.
In PolicyTech, mapping the user information fields to the corresponding fields in the tab-delimited file.
Importing the tab-delimited file into PolicyTech.

Note: To automate this process to run at specific time intervals, see Automated User Synchronization.

User Information Fields

Each user import record can contain the user information fields described in the two tables below.

Required Fields

Field	Maximum Characters	Accepted Characters	Notes
Unique Employee ID	128	All except <, \|, and ^	If PolicyTech is set up to use Active Directory authentication in Login Settings (see Active Directory Settings), we recommend that the unique employee ID be the same as the user's domain login ID.
First Name	128	All except <, \|, and ^
Last Name	128	All except <, \|, and ^
Site	255	All except <, \|, and ^
Department	255	All except <, \|, and ^	If you need to assign a user to more than one department, see Importing a User with Multiple Departments and Job Titles below.

Optional Fields

Field	Maximum Characters	Accepted Characters	Notes
Middle Name	128	All except <, \|, and ^
Job Title	255	All except <, \|, and ^	If you need to assign a user to more than one job title, see Importing a User with Multiple Departments and Job Titles below.
Email Address	128	Valid SMTP email address characters	While the Email Address field is not required, we strongly suggest including email addresses so users can receive notifications via email for tasks they need to perform. If there is no email address for a user, the user must remember to periodically check the task list in PolicyTech.
Username	128	All except <	Must be unique among all PolicyTech users. If PolicyTech is set up to use Active Directory authentication, Username value must be the same as the user's domain login ID.
Password	128	All except <	Not applicable (do not include) if PolicyTech is set up to use Active Directory authentication.
Active	1	0 (inactive) or 1 (active)	Facilitates deactivating (archiving) previously imported users only during a user sync. A user marked inactive (0) will be moved to the Archive. If a previously imported user is currently in the Archive, a 1 value restores that user to active status.*
Language	6	Any valid language code	See Language Code Tables.
Domain	240	Valid Active Directory^® domain name characters	Applies only if PolicyTech is set up to use Active Directory authentication.
Manager	128	All except <, \|, and ^	Must be the unique employee ID of a person assigned as this user's manager in PolicyTech (see Assigning a Manager). Note: You can assign only one manager to a user in an import file. You must use User Manager to assign additional managers.

*In the rare case where you need to archive all users in the site, you cannot archive them all at once during a sync. You must leave at least one user active and then manually archive that user after the sync (see Archiving a User.)

Importing a User with Multiple Departments and Job Titles

You can assign a user to more than one department and job title by separating multiple sites, departments, and job titles with the vertical bar (|) character. (Spaces before and after the vertical bar character are ignored.) The Site, Department, and Job Title fields must always have the same number of items in them, even if one or more are empty. For example, if you include two departments, there must also be two sites and two job titles designated, as shown below. Notice that including a job title is optional, but the Job Title field must include the same number of vertical bars as the Site and Department fields.

Importing Users with Custom Attributes

If custom user attributes have been created (see Custom Attributes), you can import values for those custom attributes. Simply export or manually add columns of custom attribute values to the import file. You can then map the custom attribute columns as part of the import (sync) process.

Note: If any custom attributes are dates in any format except File Date, be aware that leading zeroes for single digit days and months are required. If you save an Excel file containing custom attribute dates and those columns are formatted with a standard Excel date format, leading zeroes will be stripped from the dates when saving to tab-delimited file format, which will cause the date values not to be imported. One solution is to create a custom Excel date format, such as mm/dd/yyyy, for custom attribute date columns before saving as a tab-delimited file.

Exporting a Tab-Delimited User Information File

From within the user database application, export user information into a tab-delimited text (.txt) file. This is called the user sync file in PolicyTech. Each record in the user sync file must contain at least the required user information fields. We recommend you export a header row containing field (column) names to help with mapping those fields when you import the user information into PolicyTech.

Note: Exporting the fields in the order they are listed in the table in the "User Information Fields" section above will make mapping these fields to PolicyTech user information fields easier. To download a sample user sync file with fields in the proper order, click the following link: Blank User Import Excel Worksheet.

User Sync Rules and Behavior

Please consider the following before performing a user sync:

Any user in the sync file that does not exist in the PolicyTech database will be added. PolicyTech compares the unique user ID of each user in the sync file to the user IDs of all users in the PolicyTech database. If it does not find a match, the user is added. If it does find a match, it overwrites all the other fields for the user with that ID with the corresponding fields from the sync file. However, the Username, Password, and Manager fields will not be overwritten unless specifically designated to be overwritten (see step 8 under Performing the User Sync (Import) below).
Newly added users are assigned only the Assignee role. To assign additional roles and permissions, you must edit each user record individually (see Adding a User Manually) or use the Bulk Permissions Editor to assign roles and permissions to multiple users at once (see Bulk Permissions Editor).
While the Username and Password fields are not required in the sync file, they are required in order to create a user record in PolicyTech. For this reason, if the Username and Password fields are empty in the sync file or if you select Not in File for these fields when mapping sync file fields, PolicyTech randomly generates a user name and password so the record can be created. Before the newly created user can log in to PolicyTech, you must manually change that user's user name and password (see Adding a User Manually) and provide that information to the user.
An archived user is placed in the Archive and can be restored (see The Archive). If an archived user was a document owner, you will be notified that you need to reassign the user's documents (see Reassigning Document Owners).
Any job title, site, or department in the sync file that does not exist in the PolicyTech database will be added. The spelling of existing job titles, sites, and departments must be exactly the same in the sync file as those in the PolicyTech database to avoid creating duplicates with variant spellings.
Users added manually to the PolicyTech database are not affected by any action performed during a user sync. For example, if you select Archive users not in sync file? when setting up a sync, manually added users will not be archived. If you do want a user sync to affect manually added users, you must add them to the sync file, making sure that the Unique Employee ID fields in the sync file match those in the PolicyTech database.
PolicyTech is intentionally designed not to allow all users in a site to be archived at once. In other words, a sync attempt with Archive users not in sync file? selected and with no users listed in the sync file will fail. In the rare case where you need to archive all users in the site, you must leave at least one user in the sync file and then manually archive that user after the sync (see Archiving a User).

Performing the User Sync (Import)

To perform an initial import of user information, or to sync user information after the initial import,

In PolicyTech, click System Settings, click User Setup, and then click User Manager
Click Sync Users.

Click Choose File, navigate to the tab-delimited user information file, and then click Open.

If you saved the export file using file encoding other than Unicode (UTF-8), select that encoding.
Click Next.
In the upper box, map each PolicyTech user field to its corresponding field in the user information file. If the field is optional and no corresponding field exists in the file, or if the field does exist but you don't want the information in that field imported, select Not in File.

Note: Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required.

(Optional) Notice the check boxes in the Overwrite? column after Username, Password, and Manager. When performing a sync (importing anytime after the initial import), user name, password , and manager information from the tab-delimited file that is different than the corresponding information in PolicyTech does not overwrite the information in PolicyTech unless you select the Overwrite? check boxes.

(Optional) If you are using Active Directory authentication for PolicyTech user login (see Active Directory Settings), click the Default Domain box, and then click the domain you want a user assigned to if the user record in the file does not contain a domain field or if the mapped domain field is empty.
(Optional) If the user information file contains a header row with column names, select Remove first line? to avoid creating an extraneous user from the header row information.
(Optional) If you want any user not found in the user information file to be archived in PolicyTech, select Archive users not in sync file?

Note:

This option only affects users previously imported into PolicyTech. Users added manually will not be archived.
PolicyTech is intentionally designed not to allow all users in a site to be archived at once. In other words, a sync attempt with Archive users not in sync file? selected and with no users listed in the sync file will fail. In the rare case where you need to archive all users in the site, you must leave at least one user in the sync file and then manually archive that user after the sync (see Archiving a User).

By default, blank values are ignored. If you want blank values for unrequired fields in the import/sync file to delete any existing, corresponding values in the PolicyTech user database, click to clear the Ignore blank values? check box.
Click Finish.
A progress bar is shown while the sync is processing. (If you need to cancel it, click Abort Sync). When the import is complete, click View Report.

The report opens in a separate window, where you can print or save it.

Note: Each report is automatically saved in the PolicyTech database. To view a sync report from a previous user sync, click Sync Users, find the report in the User Sync Reports box, and then click View. You can also click XML and follow the prompts to download the report as an XML file.

In the main PolicyTech window, click Close.