Import projects and project members – Personio

This article explains how to import projects and project members into Personio. These imports allow you to:

Bring your ongoing projects into Personio in bulk, instead of manually recreating them.
Assign employees to these projects by importing project members.

With these actions, you can save time and ensure consistency across your projects.

Before you start

To import projects into Personio, you need role permissions for:
- Account configuration > Attendance projects and
- Configurations > Imports > Projects import.
To import project members into Personio, you need role permissions for:
- Account configuration > Attendance projects and
- People data > Personal data > Public profile (view permissions to the relevant access area, e.g., Custom, All, etc.), and finally
- Configurations > Imports > Project members import.
When using our import templates, make sure to read the information in the Guidelines tab of the Excel file. This tab contains important instructions specific to that import.
Imports cannot be reverted. Make sure the data you're importing is correct, and consider importing a small data set first to test the results.

Before importing your projects into Personio, you need to prepare your import file. We have a template to help you. Follow these steps:

Go to Settings.
In the Organization section, click Imports.
Select the upload type Projects and download the template.
Important: Open the Excel template and read the Guidelines tab.
Fill out the template. Refer to the table below for an overview of the columns and their descriptions.

Note the following:

Each row in the file represents one project or subproject.
To add multiple projects, create a separate row for each.
Only the column Name is required. For subprojects, Parent project is also required. The rest of the columns are optional.

Column	Description
Name	Enter the name of the project. Note that: Each project needs a unique name. Subprojects’ names must be unique within their parent project.
Parent project	For subprojects, enter the name of the parent project. For main projects, leave this blank.
Project code	Enter any internal project ID or code you’re using for the project (not Personio’s project identifier). It needs to be unique to that project.
Status	Define whether the project is active or archived. The default status is Active.
Project start date	Use the format YYYY-MM-DD. For example, 2025-12-25.
Project end date	Use the format YYYY-MM-DD. For example, 2025-12-25.
Assigned to all	The default value is TRUE. This means that any employee in your company can track time against the project. If you don’t want to assign employees to the project right now, enter FALSE. You can assign employees later on, either manually in Personio or via the Project members import. This doesn’t apply to subprojects. When you assign an employee to a project, they can track time for that project and also any subprojects it may have.
Billable	The default value is FALSE. This doesn’t apply to subprojects.
Cost center	Enter a cost center. This is based on cost centers that already exist in your Personio account. This doesn’t apply to subprojects.
Project type	Define whether a project is internal or external, for example. This doesn’t apply to subprojects.
Client	Enter the name of the client, if needed.

Once you have completed the Excel template, follow these steps to import your file:

Go to Settings.
In the Organization section, click Imports.
Select the upload type Projects.
Click Next and follow the instructions on the screen.
Make sure the columns in your file match the corresponding attributes stored in Personio. If there are errors, review your file. Follow the instructions and tooltips on the screen to fix the errors.
Confirm the import.

Before importing your project members into Personio, you need to prepare an import file. We have a template to help you. Follow these steps:

Go to Settings.
In the Organization section, click Imports.
Select the upload type Project members and download the template.
Important: Open the Excel template and read the Guidelines tab.
In the column Employee, enter the employee’s email address. This needs to match the email address stored in their employee profile.
In the column Project, enter the project name. The project needs to exist in Personio.

Note the following:

Each row represents one employee’s assignment to a project.
To assign multiple employees or multiple projects, create a separate row for each combination.

Once you have completed the Excel template, follow these steps to import your file:

Go to Settings.
In the Organization section, click Imports.
Select the upload type Project members.
Click Next and follow the instructions on the screen.
Make sure the columns in your file match the corresponding attributes stored in Personio. If there are errors, review your file. Follow the instructions and tooltips on the screen to fix the errors.
Confirm the import.