Bulk imports require the "Add employees" admin permission. Imports are scoped to the admin's groups — rows for employees outside that scope are skipped with an explanation, and rows with missing required information are flagged for review before the import runs.
Building your directory
Before importing employees, Shapes can build your account's structure for you from a spreadsheet you already use.
Step 1: Go to your account settings and open Employee Fields.
Step 2: Click Build your directory in the top-right corner.
Step 3: Drop an .xlsx or .csv file from any HR system into the upload area, or click it to browse. To pull your data straight from your HR system instead, select BambooHR or HiBob under Or import from, then click Create.
Step 4: On the Your data is ready screen, check the number of fields found and click Create. To use a different file, click the trash icon and start over.
Step 5: Wait while Shapes reads your file, compares it with the fields you already have, and groups the columns into sections. This takes about a minute.
Step 6: Review the draft. A Your setup is ready for review banner appears at the top, and fields that were added are tagged New field across the Profile, Personal and Work tabs. Click View field summary to open the All fields changes panel, which lists every new field with its field type, and every column that was matched to a field you already have, so nothing is duplicated.
Step 7: Make any changes before approving. Click a field's name to rename it (edited fields are tagged Changed), use Add Field to add a field to a section, or use Create section to add a new section.
Step 8: Click Approve to save the structure, or Discard to throw the draft away. Nothing is written to your account until you approve. Once approved, a confirmation message shows that your fields and changes have been saved.
Planning your fields first still pays off, even with an AI-assisted proposal to review. See Planning Your Employee Field Architecture in Shapes for what to consider before approving the draft.
Importing employees
Once your fields are in place, import your employee spreadsheet. You can use the same import to add new employees, update existing ones, or both. To start, go to the People Directory, click the three dots next to Add Employee, and select Import.
Required columns
New employees: First Name, Last Name and Email Address.
Updating existing employees: Email Address only — it's used to match each row to the right person.
If your file updates existing employees but also includes people who aren't in Shapes yet, add First Name and Last Name columns to the spreadsheet — without them, those new people can't be created.
Step 1: Upload your employee file. An agent maps its columns to your fields — review the proposed mapping and adjust it if needed.
Step 2: Review the matches. Each row is checked against your existing people, and for anything that would change on an existing employee, you'll see the current value alongside the incoming one.
Step 3: For fields that track history, such as compensation, choose to bring in the full history rather than just the latest value.
Step 4: Fix any errors, which are surfaced per row inside the import wizard, then run the import. A handful of bad rows won't block the rest of the file from importing — but a row missing its required columns won't be imported (for new employees) or updated (for existing ones).
Exporting errors and warnings
Instead of working through issues one by one in the wizard, you can export every error and warning as a CSV or Excel file. Each row in the export covers one issue: the employee's email, the row and column it came from, the problematic value, whether it's an error or a warning, and a description of the problem. Correct the issues offline, then re-upload.
Importing salary and job history
To upload historical compensation and role data, use the sample templates attached at the bottom of this article: Employee Data, Compensation History and Role History.
Each history template includes an Effective Date column, which tells Shapes when a change took effect so your history stays accurate:
The first role for each employee should use their start date as the effective date.
For every later salary or role change, enter the date that change took effect on its own row.
If there are no past changes to record, add a single row per employee.
If a row has no effective date, today's date is used.
Viewing past imports and undoing one
Every import is logged in Import History, along with who ran it and when — see Import History and Undoing an Import for how to view that log and undo an import if needed.