Good Morning, We woke up this morning to the new Import Interface, thankfully, the legacy interface is still available, but it has generated a great deal of anxiety on the future design of this feature. Needless to say, we are waiting with bated breath for the release notes and webinar. I wanted to pre-emptively emphasize the importance of the legacy Import feature’s functionality and the value it provides administrators. For us, loss of any of those legacy functions would be a huge negative impact to our maintenance operations. We need the import feature to continue to: Allow us to maintain static specs - we perform daily imports across a number of Apricot sites - we need to be able to quickly generate a specs document to our partners It helps to know field IDs, validation and data requirements when generating a spec - it is very easy to get this information when generating specs in the legacy interface. We need to be able to revert imports if there were issues/errors. It is very helpful to be able to see the imported/updated records so user can check a few after import It is very helpful to confirm the uploaded file for import when troubleshooting. It’s very helpful to download skipped or error’d rows so we can proceed with the import and resolve those issues when able.IF WE have to map fields every time we perform an import - that’s just untenable. It will exponentially increase the time needed for our daily maintenance activities. And creates significant opportunity for errors.IF we cannot generate specs for import files easily - we will need to laboriously, manually create specs.If we cannot validate and trace back completed imports to their original import source, resolving errors will become a monumental task. If we cannot manage errored rows efficiently - we risk missing importing critical data. How long will the legacy interface be supported? What is Bonterra’s plan for the new interface to ensure we are not losing critical functionality with the import feature?

Explorer

Solved

New Import Interface - 9/24/2026

19 replies
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Good Morning,

We woke up this morning to the new Import Interface, thankfully, the legacy interface is still available, but it has generated a great deal of anxiety on the future design of this feature. Needless to say, we are waiting with bated breath for the release notes and webinar.

I wanted to pre-emptively emphasize the importance of the legacy Import feature’s functionality and the value it provides administrators. For us, loss of any of those legacy functions would be a huge negative impact to our maintenance operations.

We need the import feature to continue to:

Allow us to maintain static specs - we perform daily imports across a number of Apricot sites - we need to be able to quickly generate a specs document to our partners
It helps to know field IDs, validation and data requirements when generating a spec - it is very easy to get this information when generating specs in the legacy interface.
We need to be able to revert imports if there were issues/errors.
It is very helpful to be able to see the imported/updated records so user can check a few after import
It is very helpful to confirm the uploaded file for import when troubleshooting.
It’s very helpful to download skipped or error’d rows so we can proceed with the import and resolve those issues when able.

IF WE have to map fields every time we perform an import - that’s just untenable. It will exponentially increase the time needed for our daily maintenance activities. And creates significant opportunity for errors.

IF we cannot generate specs for import files easily - we will need to laboriously, manually create specs.

If we cannot validate and trace back completed imports to their original import source, resolving errors will become a monumental task.

If we cannot manage errored rows efficiently - we risk missing importing critical data.

How long will the legacy interface be supported?

What is Bonterra’s plan for the new interface to ensure we are not losing critical functionality with the import feature?

Apricot

Molly KrausAnswer

Bonterran

Hi Deanna,

Thank you for sharing this so thoughtfully - appreciate you taking the time.

First, some reassurance: the legacy interface isn't going anywhere anytime soon. It will remain available while the new experience continues to be developed, and we will provide advance notice to help you and your team plan accordingly before any transitions happen.

We have documentation in the works that will give much more detail on what the new imports experience includes. Here are some of the topics that will be covered:

- How the workflow guides you through mapping your CSV column headers to the corresponding fields in Apricot
- How validation works before records are created, and how to correct errors directly in the tool
- Where to find and download error files so you can address issues and keep your import moving
- How to use import history to track and review completed sessions

In the meantime, if you haven't already, we'd encourage you to log the specific capabilities that are most important to you to see in the new experience in the Ideas Portal. That's one of the best ways to help us understand what to prioritize as we continue building.

Thank you again for your thoughts and being an engaged member of this community!

Show previous replies

Karen Bird

Explorer

I was shocked to see the new import program and how convoluted it is. So much extra work for fields that are already established. We must be able to import specific fields. In our case, we don’t get all the fields at one time. We work with Court and CPS agencies. The case workers give us basic information. If the clients show up for their classes, they fill out the information sheets. To redundantly import information that has already been collected is very time consuming and unnecessary. Not sure how you tested this model, but it was not with a broad selection of your customers, as you can tell by the responses. This is a good lesion in “listen to your customers”. My next question is how to we convert back to the original import system so we can continue to work and not be delayed in important information.

Rebekah Eslao

Community Manager

Hi @Karen Bird appreciate your feedback. Our product team is working to improve the import experience based on customer input like yours, and your specific use case is valuable context to consider for those improvements.

To keep your work moving, you can click the "Legacy Imports" button on your Imports page to revert to the original system. You can keep using that workflow without any delays to your important casework.

Rebekah at Bonterra

Naomi Katz

Active Advisor III

Hi all,

I tested the import tool a little more thoroughly today. I’m still unable to complete a full test import but here’s some additional notes based on today’s test.

Phone Numbers:
The legacy version allowed ########## (3021234567) which is extremely easy to generate in excel.
The new tool requires phone numbers in the following format - ###.###.#### however the excel formatting will not convert a phone number stored as text into this format. The only way to convert a group of text phone numbers (ex. 3021234567) to this format (302.123.4567) is to use this formula: =TEXT(A2, “000\.000\.0000”). Then you’d have to copy the data and paste it values only to keep the text and remove the formula.
Request: please add this formula to the guides for the new version. Ultimately it would be great if we could update the phone number as a block of 10 numbers without the “.” in between.

Updating Existing Records: Currently you can only do this with the record ID. The legacy version allows you to update records w/ the duplicate check fields. Unfortunately the tool is untestable for us without this capability because all our imports require updating existing records based on a list of 100+ clients from an external source. I’m hoping this will be released in one of the first updates so we can begin to test the new version and provide further feedback.

Required Fields: Currently the new tool requires all required fields to be included in the import. We actually exclude demographic data from our weekly import as the state data we receive does not include race, ethnicity, gender, marital status, etc. The only way to complete the import now would be to include those fields as “don’t know/not required” which would overwrite the existing accurate demographic info. It would be great to have the ability to skip required fields as one of the early updates so we can do a full test of the tool.

In other news - I’m happy to hear this tool is still actively in development.

Olivia Mangini

Rising Star I

Thanks for testing it further- all of the problems you state would also be issues in our use case of the tool as well.

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