Teams: Bulk Management via Excel Round-Trip
Managing a large team structure no longer means clicking through endless menus. With the Excel round-trip workflow, you can export your entire team hierarchy, make bulk changes in a familiar spreadsheet environment, and upload everything back in one go.
IN THIS ARTICLE
1. What is the Excel round-trip?
1. What is the Excel round-trip?
The Excel round-trip is a bulk management workflow that lets you download your full team structure as an editable .xlsx file, make changes offline, and re-upload the file to apply all updates at once.
It is designed for situations where you need to make many changes at the same time; such as a team reorganization, onboarding a large group of users, or adjusting permissions across multiple team; and doing so one by one in the UI would be too time-consuming.
2. What can you change?
The exported file contains your full team hierarchy, including:
- Team names and aliases
- Subteam structure (parent–child relationships)
- User assignments
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Team permissions
You can use the file to:
Add new teams or subteams
Rename existing teams
Reorganize the hierarchy (e.g. move a subteam under a different parent)
Update user assignments (add or remove members)
Adjust permissions for any team
IMPORTANT
You cannot use this file to create new users. Users must already exist in the platform before they can be assigned to teams via the Excel upload.
3. How to use it
a. Export your team hierarchy
Go to the team overview page from the left navigation menu.
Click Export teams to download the current structure as an .xlsx file.
In one page, the file will contain one row per team, with columns for team name, parent team, users, and permissions.
In the second page the file will contain the permissions added to each team.
CAUTION
Do not change the column headers or the file structure
b. Edit the file
Open the file in Excel or any compatible spreadsheet application and make your changes.
A few things to keep in mind:
- Do not delete or rename the column headers. The upload process relies on exact column names to parse the data correctly.
- Leave the team ID column unchanged for any existing teams. This is how the platform identifies which rows correspond to existing teams versus new ones.
- To add a new team, leave the ID field empty and fill in all other required fields.
-
To remove a team, delete the row entirely. Note that removing a team will also remove any user assignments linked to it.
- You can add users to the new teams
NOTE
If you are unsure about any changes, we recommend making a backup copy of the original export before editing.
TIP
You can nest newly created teams under other teams by assigning a parent team. Simply select the name of the existing team as the parent when creating a new one.
This approach makes it much easier to organize and structure new sections efficiently.
c. Upload and preview changes
Return to the team overview page.
Click Import teams and select your edited file.
The platform will validate the file and display a preview of all pending changes before anything is applied.
The preview screen shows:
- Teams to be added (highlighted in green)
- Teams to be updated (highlighted in blue)
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Teams to be removed (highlighted in red)
IMPORTANT
Review the changes carefully before proceeding.
d. Apply changes
Once you are satisfied with the preview, click Apply changes to confirm.
The update is all-or-nothing: either all changes are applied successfully, or none of them are. This prevents partial updates that could leave your team structure in an inconsistent state.
If the upload is successful, the team overview page will refresh to reflect the new structure.
4. Error handling
If the file contains errors, the upload will be rejected and a list of issues will be displayed. No changes will be applied until all errors are resolved.
Common errors include:
-
A required field is missing (e.g. team name left blank)
- A parent team referenced in the file does not exist in the platform
- A user assigned to a team does not exist in the platform
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Duplicate team names within the same level of the hierarchy
Fix the issues in the file and re-upload.
5. Good to know
- Only admin users can access the bulk management workflow.
- The feature is accessible from the team overview page: there is no separate menu entry.
-
Touchpoint links are not included in the export file. If you need to update touchpoint-team mappings, you can do so separately.
If you need help with this feature, contact your Customer Success Manager or email support@hellocustomer.com or your CSM.