Importing players from a registration CSV
A league Admin imports players into a tryout from the CSV export of the league's registration system. You choose the file, match its columns and its division names to the tryout's, preview what will change, and confirm. Nothing is saved until you confirm, and an import never deletes a player or undoes a check-in.
Who can do what
| Step | Who |
|---|---|
| Import players into a tryout | League Admins, on an open tryout |
| See the league's import history | League Admins |
| Edit, merge or erase a player | League Admins, from the league's Players page |
Set up the tryout's divisions first (Setting up a tryout): an import puts each player in one of them and never creates divisions.
Step 1: choose the file
Open Import players from the tryout (on the league's home page or the tryout's Evaluators page) and choose the CSV file.
- Up to 2 MB, 5,000 players and 40 columns.
- The first row must be the column headers.
- UTF-8 and Windows Latin-1 files both work. A file saved as UTF-16 (Excel's "Unicode Text") is refused; save it as "CSV UTF-8" instead.
ScoutSheet reads the file to preview and import, and doesn't keep it.
Step 2: check the columns
ScoutSheet matches each field to a column of your file. A file in the standard registration layout is matched automatically; otherwise pick a column for each field, or Not in this file.
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Name | Required. "Last, First" or "First Last". |
| Birth Date | Required. YYYY-MM-DD, M/D/YYYY (or day first) or an Excel date number. |
| Gender | Female/girl or male/boy; anything else is left blank with a warning. |
| Email, Phone, SMS Phone, WhatsApp | Parent contacts, shown only to the league's Admins. |
| Position | |
| Evaluation Division | Matched to the tryout's divisions in step 3. |
| Last Year Division, League Age, Select Team Candidate | Kept as extra player details. ScoutSheet works out league age itself and warns when the file's differs. |
| Eval Group | Optional; see below. |
If every birth date in the file could be read either way (like 4/2/2017), ScoutSheet asks whether they are Month/day/year (US) or Day/month/year.
The Eval Group column
If your file has an Eval Group (time slot) column, each player who isn't in an Eval Group yet goes into the Eval Group of that name in their division. A group the division doesn't have is created; a label like "01/17 - 11:00 AM" sets its start time, and it lasts an hour. A player placed this way still gets their number at check-in.
Step 3: match the divisions
Each value in the file's Evaluation Division column goes to one of the tryout's divisions, or Skip these rows. Then press Preview.
Step 4: preview
The preview sorts every row into Needs review, New, Update, Unchanged, Problem, Skipped and Missing from file (players in the tryout but not in this file; they stay).
How does ScoutSheet match players it already has?
A row matches a league player with the same name (ignoring case, accents, spaces and punctuation) and the same birth date. Players belong to the league, so last season's players are matched too.
These go to Needs review instead of being merged on their own:
- several players match;
- the file has the same player twice;
- a player has the same name but a different or missing birth date.
For each one choose Update this player, Create a new player or Skip this row. Near misses such as "Sam" and "Samuel" are not flagged; merge them later from the Players page if needed.
Step 5: confirm
Press Import players. The import is all or nothing. If someone checked players in or imported while you were looking, ScoutSheet previews again and asks you to confirm the new preview.
What an import never does
- Delete a player, or create a division.
- Rename a player, or clear a field because a cell is blank.
- Change a placed or checked-in player's Eval Group, number, check-in or league age. If the file disagrees, the preview says so and you move them at the desk.
After the import
Each import is listed on the league's Import history page, with who imported, when, into which tryout, and the counts only. On the league's Players page, Admins can edit a player's details, merge two records of the same child, and erase a player.