What this tool is for

If your state PTA wants to keep a record of how many members each unit had in past years, the Import Historical Memberships tool lets you load those prior-year totals all at once. Instead of typing in numbers unit by unit, you upload a single spreadsheet file and Connect fills in the counts for you.

This is a State-level tool, and it requires the manage entities role in your state. If you don’t see it, ask another state administrator.

Where to find it

1. Sign in and go to your state PTA.
2. Open Setup from the navigation bar.
3. Under Import, choose Import Historical Memberships.

You will land on a simple page with directions, a template to download, and a place to upload your file.

What you will need: the CSV file

Your file is a CSV (a simple spreadsheet file). It needs one row for each unit and school year you want to record, plus a header row at the top.

The file must contain these three columns, named exactly:

• unitrefcode — the unit’s reference code.
• term — the school year, entered as the starting year (for example, 2022 for the 2022 - 2023 school year).
• member_count — the number of members for that unit in that year. This must be a whole number of zero or more.

Which code is “unitrefcode”?

This one trips people up, because a unit carries three different identifiers. The import matches on the unit’s Ref Code — the one labelled Ref Code in the Organization panel on the unit’s dashboard.

It is not the State PTA ID or the National PTA ID shown in the Registration IDs panel. If your rows are all coming back as “Unit not found,” a mismatched code is almost always why. The Directory’s Units tab export is a quick way to pull the right codes for every unit at once.

Example

unit_ref_code,term,member_count
U12345,2022,150

This example records that the unit with reference code U12345 had 150 members in the 2022 - 2023 school year.

Download the template

So you start with the right column names, download the ready-made template.

1. On the Import Historical Memberships page, click Download Template.
2. Open the downloaded file in your spreadsheet program.
3. Keep the header row exactly as it is, then add one row per unit and year.
4. Save the file as a CSV.

Upload your file

1. On the Import Historical Memberships page, click the file field and choose your saved file.
2. Click Import.

If everything is correct, you will see a confirmation that your historical membership counts were imported successfully.

If something needs fixing

Connect checks every row before saving anything. If any row has a problem, nothing at all is imported — the whole file is rolled back — and you’ll see a list of the rows that need attention, each with its line number. Common issues include:

• Unit not found — the unitrefcode in that row does not match a unit in your state. Double-check the code (see above).
• Term not found — the year in the term column does not match a school year in Connect. Make sure you entered the correct starting year.
• The file does not appear to be valid — the file could not be read. Make sure you are uploading a properly formatted CSV file.

Fix the rows that were flagged, save the file again, and re-upload. When all rows are valid, your counts will be saved.

A note on re-importing

If you import a count for a unit and year that already has one, the new number replaces the old one. Each unit can have only one count per school year, so re-importing is a safe way to update a number you entered earlier.