What Happens When You Import, and Who Gets Notified
Read this before your first real import. The wizard is reversible right up to the final button. After that button, residents start receiving email. The short version Pressing Import does four things,...
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Read this before your first real import. The wizard is reversible right up to the final button. After that button, residents start receiving email.
The short version
Pressing Import does four things, in this order, for every row:
- Creates the unit, or finds it if it already exists.
- Sets or upgrades the unit's status.
- Creates the person and sends them an invitation email, or links them to the unit if they already have a URBI account.
- Records the outcome for the report that lands in your inbox at the end.
Step 3 is the one that reaches the outside world.
Who gets an email, and what it says
The invitation link is personal to that person and that unit. It takes them through identity verification, a look at their unit details, and the terms, and ends with a live URBI account. From the moment the import finishes, those people can sign in.
Running the same file twice does not spam anyone
This is worth knowing, because the fear of a double send is what usually stops people importing.
An invitation is only emailed when it is genuinely new. If an invitation already exists for that email address on that unit, URBI keeps the original link, sends nothing, and reports the row as a warning instead. Re running a corrected file over the top of a partly finished import is therefore safe: the people already invited are left alone and only the new ones hear from you.
The one way to deliberately re send is Resend Invite on the member, which re delivers the same link rather than issuing a new one.
What changes on the unit
| The row's occupant type | The unit becomes |
|---|---|
TENANT or PROPERTY_MANAGER |
Rented |
OWNER, RESIDENT or DEPENDENT |
Owner |
| Blank, on a unit that did not exist before | Vacant |
EMERGENCY_CONTACT |
Unchanged |
On a unit that already exists, a tenant row always upgrades it to Rented, and an owner row only claims a unit that is Vacant or new. An owner row can never pull a rented unit back to Owner, so the order of rows in your file does not matter.
There is no undo
The importer has no rollback. Once it has run:
- A unit created in error is deleted one at a time from the Units list.
- A person invited in error is removed from the unit through their member record.
- An invitation already delivered cannot be recalled from the recipient's inbox.
This is the reason the checklist exists.
Timing you can plan around
The import runs in the background, one row at a time, so a full building takes minutes rather than seconds and the invitations go out across that window rather than all at once. You can close the panel and carry on working. The report email arrives when the last row is done.
Nothing in the importer lets you schedule an import for later or hold the invitations back. If the timing matters, the lever you have is when you press the button.