Crew

Import cast or crew from a spreadsheet

SceneItAll bulk-imports cast members and crew from CSV or Excel files through a shared wizard: choose a file, map columns, preview and import, then review the result. A step indicator at the top of the dialog shows which step you are on. Open the wizard from the Import button on the Cast List or Crew List tab.

Prerequisites

A project is selected.
Importing needs the admin role or higher.
A file with a header row, saved as CSV (.csv) or Excel (.xlsx or .xls).

Import cast members

On the Cast List tab, select Import.
Choose File — optionally select Download CSV template first to get a file with the expected headers, then select Choose File and pick your CSV or Excel file. If the file cannot be parsed, an error appears.
Map Columns — SceneItAll auto-detects columns from their header names. Review the mappings, adjust any with the dropdowns, and choose — Skip — to ignore an optional column. A preview of the first three rows updates as you map. For Cast, only Name must be mapped before Continue is enabled. Mapping a field means the file has a source column for it; the next step separately validates the values in each row.
Preview & Import — the wizard validates every row and shows a green “N valid” chip and, if any rows fail, a red “N errors” chip. Each row gets a check or error icon; error rows are tinted and show the first error. The Match column shows whether the row is a new person or matches someone already in the project (see Re-importing the same people). Choose what happens to matching rows, then select Import N members to import the valid rows.
Result — the wizard stays open and shows how many rows were created, updated, skipped, or failed, plus a Needs attention list for rows to check, such as a Character Name that could not be linked. Select Done to close it.

Use Back to step back through the wizard at any point.

Imported cast appear immediately in the Cast List and Availability tabs. Views such as the Mailing List also update when the new cast members are relevant to the selected day or schedule. Saved reports keep their existing information until you refresh them.

Cast fields and auto-detection

The mapping step groups the fields:

Basic Info — Name, Character Name, Contract Type, Email, Phone, Stage Name, Nationality. Name is the only required column mapping.

Agency — Agency Name, Agent Name, Agent Email, Agent Phone.

Manager — Manager Name, Manager Email, Manager Phone.

Measurements — Height, Weight, Chest/Bust, Waist, Hips, Inseam, Jacket/Suit, Shirt/Top, Trouser/Pant, Dress, Shoe, Hat, Glove, Collar, and Measurement Notes.

Auto-detection matches common header names — for example “name”, “actor”, or “full name” for Name; “character” or “role” for Character; and the obvious names for each contact and measurement field.

Cast validation rules

Each row must contain a Name. Every other value is optional.
A non-empty Email value is checked for a valid format.
Cast import does not accept or create production numbers. An imported cast member takes the number of the Character it is linked to.
Character Name links an existing Character. The name is compared with each active Character’s name and character name, ignoring case and extra spaces, and the cast member is linked to it. Import never creates Characters: if no Character matches, the cast member is imported without a Character and the result step lists the row as “not found”. The same happens when several Characters match, when the Character is already linked to another cast member, when an earlier row in the file already claimed it, or when its number is held by another cast member. Link those rows by hand afterwards.
Contract types are normalized — for example “principal”, “day player”, “run of show”, and also “flat” and “loan out”.

Import crew members

On the Crew List tab, select Import. The flow is the same three steps.
Choose File — select Download Excel template to get a project-specific .xlsx with a flat Department column and built-in dropdowns for Department, Position, and Head of Dept (Yes/No), pre-filled from your project’s existing departments and positions. Filling cells from the dropdowns keeps the values consistent so they import cleanly.
Map Name and Position, plus any optional fields, then preview and import. Those two mappings are required before Continue is enabled; the preview step separately validates each row’s values.

Imported crew appear immediately in the Crew List, Departments, Availability, and relevant Mailing List views. They are included in the availability calendar even before any dates have been assigned.

New departments are created on import

You don’t have to set up a department before importing into it. If a row’s Department doesn’t match an existing one, SceneItAll creates that department as part of the import (matching is case-insensitive and trims surrounding spaces, so “camera” links to an existing “Camera”). The same applies to positions.

Crew fields and auto-detection

Field	Requirement	Auto-detected from
Name	Mapping + row value	“name”, “crew name”, “full name”
Position	Mapping + row value	“position”, “role”, “job title”, “title”
Department	No	“department”, “dept”, “dep”
Email	No	“email”, “e-mail”, “mail”
Phone	No	“phone”, “telephone”, “tel”, “mobile”, “cell”
Company	No	“company”, “agency”, “firm”, “organisation”
Crew ID	No	“crew id”, “crew #”, “crew number”, “manual id”, “id”
Head of Dept	No	“hod”, “head of department”, “department head”

Crew validation rules

Each row requires Name and Position. Email, Phone, and Department are optional.
Email is checked for a valid format.
Crew ID must be letters, numbers, and hyphens. A Crew ID that already exists, or repeats an earlier row, identifies that person (see below) rather than causing an error.
The Head of Dept column accepts “yes”, “true”, “1”, or “y” (case-insensitive).

Re-importing the same people

Importing a file again, or a longer version of it, never creates duplicates. Each row is matched against the people already in the project and against the earlier rows of the same file:

Crew ID (Crew only) — a row whose Crew ID belongs to someone matches that person.
Email — compared without regard to capital letters or surrounding spaces.
Name — used only when the row has no email, or the person with that name has no email. Capital letters and extra spaces are ignored; accents count, so “Renée” and “Renee” are different people. The same name with a different email is treated as a different person.

The Match column in the preview shows the outcome for each row: New, Matches name, Several matches (more than one person shares the name or email), Crew ID and email differ (they belong to two different people), or Repeated in file.

Above the preview table, choose what to do with rows that match someone already in the project:

Fill empty fields (the default) — the existing person keeps every value they already have. Only empty fields are filled from the file: for Cast, the contact details, contract type, stage name, nationality, and the agency, manager, and measurement fields; for Crew, email, phone, company, department, Crew ID, and a position when they have none. A cast member without a Character is linked to the row’s Character; a cast member who already has one is never re-linked.
Skip — matching rows are left exactly as they are.

Rows that match several people, or whose Crew ID and email point at different people, are not imported; they appear as failed in the result step so you can fix the file. A row that repeats an earlier row of the same file is skipped.

Import availability dates

The Availability tab has a separate Import Dates button for bulk-setting availability across many dates. See Track availability on the calendar for that flow.

Tips

Auto-detection works best when your headers use common names like “Name”, “Email”, “Phone”, and “Role”.
Review the preview in the mapping step carefully — incorrect column mappings are the most common source of errors.
Error rows are skipped, not blocking. Fix them in your source file and re-import it; people who were already imported are matched, not duplicated.