Importing New and Existing Employees with Dependents

Who this is for: anyone adding a group's employees and their spouses or children to NextAgency from a spreadsheet, or updating employees who are already there.

Prefer to watch? Importing New and Existing Employees with Dependents (Video)

Not sure this is your path? If your group's employees come from a benefits administration integration, see Setting up the Employee Navigator Integration instead. If you're bringing over a whole book of cases, start with Preparing Your Spreadsheet for Import.

How the employee import works

Every employee and dependent gets their own record

Employees are listed on the group case's Employees tab, and each one has a case record of their own. Dependents are attached to the employee and also get their own record, so you can open, update and assign benefits to them individually.

New or Existing: pick one before you start

• New creates employees and dependents who aren't in NextAgency yet.
• Existing updates employees who are already associated to the group. You can also use it to add dependents to an existing employee.

Use two separate sheets if you have both. A sheet of new hires goes through New, and changes to current employees go through Existing.

Records are matched on names

An Existing import finds each employee by group name and by first and last name. When it finds a match, it updates that record in place, so an update can't create duplicates. If a name doesn't match anyone in the group, the import stops, nothing from that file is imported, and the error screen tells you which name wasn't found. Correct the name in your sheet and import again.

The name has to match exactly. "Matt" won't find "Matthew," and a stray space or different spelling reads as a different name.

Dependents attach through the relation column

Each dependent gets their own row, with a relation such as Spouse or Child that ties them to their employee. The relation you choose also carries through to censuses, and a dependent marked Spouse is set to Married automatically.

Set up first

Build the sheet

Start from the template, or map your own headers

Download the employee template from the import screen, or upload your own file. Headers that match NextAgency's field names lock into place on their own. Map any others yourself. If you import from the same source often, save your mapping as a template to reuse next time.

Required fields

When you start a New import from the group's Employees tab, the group is already chosen, so Group Name isn't needed.

One row per person

Put the employee on one row and each dependent on a row of their own, directly under that employee. Rows with dependents must include the first and last name of the employee, repeated on every row.

Best practices for the spreadsheet

• Dates: use one format with a four-digit year (MM/DD/YYYY). A two-digit year like "48" can be read as 2048.
• ZIP codes: format the column as Text so "07030" doesn't become "7030."
• SSNs: keep them as text, with or without dashes, and the same way on every row.
• Names: trim extra spaces, and spell them the way they appear in NextAgency.
• Relations: use the same word for the same relationship on every row, such as Spouse and Child.
• No blank rows between employees.

Run a New import

1. Open the group case and go to its Employees tab.
2. Click Import.
3. Download the employee template, or upload your own spreadsheet.
4. Click Map Headers and check that each column is matched to the right field.
5. Click Continue.
6. Give the import a name you'll recognize later, then click Import.

The import runs in the background. When it finishes, its status reads Completed, and the new employees appear on the group's Employees tab. Open an employee and go to their Dependents tab to see their spouse and children, each with the relation from your sheet.

You can also start a New import from the Case Imports list: choose Employee, then New, and include the Group Name in your sheet.

Run an Existing import

1. Go to Case Imports and choose Employee.
2. Choose Existing and click Next.
3. Upload your sheet.
4. Click Map Headers, then Continue, the same way as for a New import.
5. Name the import and click Import.

When it finishes, the status reads Completed. The columns you included, such as email addresses, are filled in on the Employees tab, and any dependents you added appear on the employee's Dependents tab.

Test with a small batch first

Copy your sheet and keep between two and ten rows. An import reads only the first tab of a spreadsheet, so you can use the same file and move the test tab to the front.

1. Import that batch.
2. Open a few of the employees and their dependents in NextAgency and check them.
3. Fix anything in your full sheet, then import the rest.

When something looks wrong

If an import shows Failed, click its Errors count to open the error screen. The line for each problem says what to fix. For more on the error screen, see Fixing Import Errors and Using Previous Imports.

To adjust the relation between a dependent and an employee afterward, use the Actions menu at the right of the dependent's row, or the bulk actions at the top to change several dependents at once.

What an employee import does not cover

• Censuses. The census is kept separately for quoting. Use Bulk Actions > Copy to Census after the import. It's a one-time copy, so later changes need to be made in both places.
• Removing employees. Terminate or archive employees from the Employees tab rather than through the import.
• Creating employees from an Existing import. Put new employees on a New import.
• Benefits. Assign benefits to employees and dependents after they're imported.

Before you import: checklist

• The group case exists in NextAgency
• New employees and existing employees are on separate sheets
• Each person, employee or dependent, has their own row
• Each dependent row includes the employee's first and last name, the dependent's first and last name, and a relation
• Names on Existing sheets match NextAgency exactly
• Dates use four-digit years
• The ZIP and SSN columns are formatted as Text
• You've test-imported about ten rows and checked the results

Glossary