Import Errors and What They Mean
Terminology: This universal guide uses neutral descriptions. The product renders its configured property and occupant labels; machine-readable CSV values remain unchanged. Every message the importer...
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Terminology: This universal guide uses neutral descriptions. The product renders its configured property and occupant labels; machine-readable CSV values remain unchanged.
Every message the importer can show you, what caused it, and what to do. Messages appear in two places: on the Review step before you import, and in the Location Import Report email afterwards.
Read this first: four rules
- Nothing is created until you press Import. Uploading, mapping and reviewing never touch your property. Anything that goes wrong in those steps leaves URBI exactly as it was.
- Nobody is emailed by the import itself, ever. Pressing Import only creates locations and adds people as Pending Invite (or links an existing account with a held notice). The messages below describe that quiet creation, not an email being sent; people are only contacted once you separately run Bulk Invite. See Bulk Invite and Send Reminder.
- A warning does not stop a row. Warnings on the Review step import as they are unless you edit or skip them. Only an error stops a row.
- A row that fails does not stop the rest. The importer works through every row and reports each one separately.
Part 1: On the Review step
Errors, which stop the row
Location number is required
What it means. The row has no location number, so there is nothing to attach it to.
What to do. Type the location number into the row, or skip the row. If many rows show this, your file probably has extra title rows above the header, or the location column mapped to the wrong field on the previous step. Go Back and check the mapping.
Invalid email format: "..."
What it means. The address is not a well formed email. A trailing dot, a missing @, two addresses squeezed into one cell, or a stray space.
What to do. Correct it in the row, or clear the email entirely (the location still imports, the person is skipped), or skip the row. URBI only checks the shape of the address, never whether the mailbox exists, so a well formed typo passes this check and becomes a Pending Invite whose eventual welcome email goes nowhere once you run Bulk Invite.
Warnings, which import as they are
Email missing, will import location only, skip person
What it means. There is a name on the row but no address to invite them at.
What to do. Add the address if you have it. If you do not, leave it: the location is created correctly and you add the person later, once you have their email.
Missing first name and last name, needed for person creation
What it means. There is an email address but the name is incomplete. Both halves are needed to create a person.
What to do. Fill in the missing half. Left as it is, the location imports and the person is not created.
"..." is not a valid type
What it means. The occupant_type is not one of the six URBI accepts. Exports commonly say "Person Occupant", "Absentee", "Renter" or "Lessee", none of which URBI knows.
What to do. Change it to OWNER, RESIDENT, TENANT, PROPERTY_MANAGER, DEPENDENT or EMERGENCY_CONTACT. Left as it is, the row still imports and the location is treated as occupied, which is often not what you meant.
Duplicate: same email and location as row N
What it means. Two rows put the same person on the same location.
What to do. Delete or skip one of them. Left in, the second row is refused at import time and reported as an existing invite. Note that the same address on two different locations is fine, which is the normal case for a person of two locations.
Phone contains invalid characters: "..."
What it means. The phone has something in it that is not a digit, a plus, a dash, a space, brackets, a dot or an x. Usually a note that ended up in the phone column.
What to do. Clean it, or clear the cell. Left in, it imports as written.
Informational notes, which are usually fine
Location "X" already exists, will add person to existing location
The location is already in URBI. The person on this row is attached to the existing location rather than a second one being created. This is normal when you are topping up a building that was imported before. It is a problem only if you did not expect the location to be there, which usually means the location numbers are formatted differently from last time.
User "..." already exists in URBI, will be linked to location
That address already has an URBI account, from this property or another. They are given access to this location immediately; a held notice that they now have access is queued for them rather than a new invitation, and it is delivered the next time Bulk Invite runs.
Part 2: In the Location Import Report
Every row appears in the report with one of three labels.
Success messages
- Location "X" created successfully. A new empty location, from a location only row.
- Location created, person name@example.com added. The location was created and the person was added as Pending Invite (or linked with a held notice, if they already had an account). Nobody was emailed yet.
- Emergency contact saved to location wiki for "X". The contact is on the location's wiki. No account was created and no email was sent, ever, which is correct.
Warning messages
- Location "X" already existed. The location was already in URBI so nothing was created. Harmless.
- Location existed, person name@example.com added. The location was already there, the person is new and was added as Pending Invite. Nobody was emailed yet.
- Invite already exists for name@example.com in location X. This person already had an invitation on this location, whether or not it had been emailed yet. No second invitation was created and their original link still works. This is what you want to see when you re run a file.
- User name@example.com already assigned to location X. They already have access. Nothing changed.
Error messages
- Failed to create location: ... The location could not be created, so nothing else on the row happened either. The text after the colon is the underlying reason. Most often the location number is longer than the field allows or contains something unexpected. Fix that row and import it on its own.
- Location created, but failed to add name@example.com: ... The location is there, the person is not. Fix whatever the message names and re import just that row, or add the person by hand from the location. Re importing is safe.
- Unexpected error: ... Something outside the usual paths. The location may or may not have been created, so open the location before you retry. If it repeats on the same row, send the report line to support.
Part 3: Problems before you get that far
Failed to parse CSV file
The file is not readable as CSV. It is usually an XLSX renamed to .csv. Open it in Excel or Numbers and use Save As or Export to produce a real CSV.
Too many rows. Maximum 2000 rows per import
Split the file. Two imports of the same property are perfectly safe: anyone added by the first file is not duplicated by the second, and nobody is emailed twice by Bulk Invite regardless of which file they were added from.
Missing required fields: property_id, rows
The upload reached URBI with nothing usable in it, which normally means every row was skipped on the Review step. Go back and check that at least one row is still selected.
Nothing happens when I choose Continue
Check that a column is mapped to location. Without it, no row can be built.
The report never arrived
The report goes to the address on the account that ran the import. Check the spam folder first. The import itself still ran: open the Locations list to see the result.
Part 4: After the fact
I imported into the wrong property
There is no move. Delete the locations from the wrong property one at a time, then import into the right one. If you had already run Bulk Invite for that property, anybody who received a welcome email or held notice has to be told, because their link is real; if you hadn't run it yet, nothing was ever sent and there is nothing to walk back beyond deleting the locations.
I imported a test file into a live property
Delete the test locations and remove the people. If you had not yet pressed Bulk Invite, nothing was sent and this is entirely safe. If you had, welcome emails or held notices already delivered cannot be recalled, so tell whoever received them.
Half the property shows as Rented and it should not
The occupant types were wrong. TENANT and PROPERTY_MANAGER both set a location to Rented, and a rental-classified row takes precedence over a rental-classified row on the same location. Fix the status on each location from the Locations list. Re importing with corrected types does not fix it: a rental-classified row never pulls a rented location back.
Somebody says they got two emails
They did not get two from the import itself, which never emails anyone. Two emails means either two different locations on the same property, both invited by Bulk Invite, or somebody used Resend Invite, which re delivers the same link.