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.
Not sure this is your path? If your group's employees come from a benefits administration platform, 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 first and last name. When it finds a match, it updates that record in place. When it doesn't, it flags the row instead of creating a new employee, so an update can't create duplicates.
The name has to match exactly. "Matt" won't find "Matthew," and a stray space or different spelling will be flagged as a different name.
Dependents attach through the relationship column
Each dependent gets their own row, with a relationship such as Spouse or Child that ties them to their employee. The relationship you choose also carries through to censuses, and a dependent marked Spouse is set to Married automatically.
Set up first
| Set up first | Why |
|---|---|
| The group case | Employees import into a group. Create the group first if it isn't in NextAgency yet |
| Dependent address setting (optional) | Turn on Automatically copy dependent address information from primary account address in your agency preferences, and dependents take their employee's address. Leave it off if you're importing dependent addresses yourself |
| Linked sales status setting (optional) | Dependents follow their employee's sales status by default. Your agency preferences control whether that link stays in place |
| A current report (To help import into existing records when you're having trouble matching names) | Export the group's employees and edit that file to copy directly from what we have in-system, so the names already match what's in NextAgency |
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 and map each column to a NextAgency field. If you import from the same source often, save your mapping as a template to reuse next time.
Required fields
| Field | New import | Existing import |
|---|---|---|
| Group Name | Required | Required, must match exactly |
| Sales Status | Required | Not required |
| First Name | Required | Required, must match exactly |
| Last Name | Required | Required, must match exactly |
| Dependent First Name (dependent rows) | Required (if importing dependents) | Required, must match exactly if updating dependents |
| Dependent Last Name (dependent rows) | Required (if importing dependents) | Required, must match exactly if updating dependents |
| Relationship (dependent rows) | Required | Required when adding dependents |
| Fields you want to change | Optional | Include only the columns you're updating |
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.
| Instead of | Build |
|---|---|
| One row with Spouse Name and Child 1 Name columns | One row for the employee, one row for the spouse, one row for each child |
| A household on one line | Each person on their own line, with their own date of birth |
Best practices for importing from a 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.
- Relationships: use the same word for the same relationship on every row, such as Spouse and Child.
- No blank rows between employees.
Run the import
- Open the Import module and select Employee.
- Choose New or Existing.
- Upload your file and map the headers of each column to a NextAgency field.
- Click Validate. Any row with a problem is flagged, with the reason next to it.
- Fix the flagged rows, or remove them and import them later.
- Click Import.
(Optional) Import New only employees and their dependents from the Group's Employee tab. If importing from the Group's Employee tab, the Group Name is not required. Existing employees and dependents can not be updated through this option.
(Optional) Test with a small batch first
- Copy your sheet and keep between two to ten rows. When importing our system will only input data from the first tab on a spreadsheet, so you can use the same sheet and simply move the positioning of the tabs.
- Import that batch.
- Open a few of the employees and their dependents in NextAgency and check them.
- Fix anything in your full sheet, then import the rest. If your batch is extremely large, please contact us directly for help with importing everything correctly and smoothly.
When something looks wrong
| What you see | Why | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| An Existing row is flagged as not found | The name on the sheet doesn't match the name in NextAgency | Copy the name from an report or by locating the group's employees, then import again |
| A dependent landed on the wrong employee | The dependent's row isn't directly under their employee, or the relationship is blank | Move the row under the right employee and fill in the relationship. |
| Dependents show up as employees | Their rows have no relationship value | Add Spouse, Child or another relationship to each dependent row |
| Birth dates are off by a century | The sheet used two-digit years | Use four-digit years |
| ZIP codes are missing a digit | The leading zero was dropped | Format the ZIP column as Text and re-enter the codes |
| New employees aren't on the census | The Employees and Census tabs are kept separately | On the Employees tab, select the employees and use Bulk Actions > Copy to Census |
To adjust the relationships between dependents and an employee, you can use the actions dropdown to the right or the bulk actions at the top of a dependent's row to affect multiple 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. Rows that don't match are flagged, not created. Put new employees on a New import.
- Benefits. Assign benefits to employees and dependents after they're imported.
Before you import: checklist
Print this page to use it as a 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 first/last name, the dependent first/last name, and has a relationship
- 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 of terms:
| Term | What it means | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| Group case | The employer's record | Cases/Policies |
| Employee | A person employed by the group, with their own record | Group case > Employees tab |
| Dependent | A spouse, child or other family member covered through an employee | Employee record > Dependents |
| Relationship | How a dependent is related to their employee, such as Spouse or Child | Dependent record |
| Census | A list of employees and dependents used for quoting, one per product type | Group case > Census tab |
| New / Existing | Whether an import creates records or updates ones already there | Import screen |