Batch importing users and telephony profiles

Adobe Connect offers multiple options for account administrators to add users and groups to the system, including adding users manually, importing a CSV list (the subject of this post), programatically through API calls, or setting up LDAP/Active Directory integration.

While the process of importing users via CSV is relatively straightforward, I've seen customers run into a few common issues:

• Start with a sample file: The format for the CSV is quite specific. Use this sample CSV file as a starting point.
• Watch your commas: If any of your imported values contain a comma, you will need to add quotes around the entire cell being imported.
• Watch the 'extra' commas: Even though the help files shows tables with commas in each cell, you likely don't have to do this if you're exporting out of Excel. Double-check by opening the file in a pure text editor.
• Delete empty cells: If you're working in a program like Microsoft Excel to create your CSV, and you're getting an error message while trying to upload the CSV file, try to open up the CSV file in a pure text editor. This will let you see if there are any additional columns (noted by sequential commas) or empty rows. Either issue will cause the CSV import to fail, so be sure to delete any extra empty columns/rows.
• Remember your password policy: If you customize your password policy to be more restrictive than the default, make sure the passwords you're trying to import into the system comply with your policy.

Two resources that you will want to check out:

• Topic page from the official Adobe Connect 8 Help Guide
• Post on Ian Justin's blog, All Things Adobe Connect, about this topic. Ian also goes through the process for importing custom fields, so no need for me to recreate the wheel.

Adding Telephony Profiles

Once you've imported your users, you may also need to add a telephony profile for each of your users. Greg Clausen, a member of the Adobe Connect support team (and all around nice guy), created a super handy utility for doing this. Greg's article on Connectusers.com covers this topic. The great thing about the utility is that it lets you handle both advanced audio integration profiles as well as Universal Voice profiles.

One quick note on the above: Greg's utility does not allow for custom fields to be added, so I typically use the option in Connect Central to upload users (with custom fields), and then add telephony profiles and even create meeting rooms for users.

Hope the above helps. Drop me a comment if you have any questions on the topic.