How to import a project or recipe (CSV file)

This article is for importing a project from another tool or from an Excel sheet. You can import it into the Project List page or into the Recipe List page if you want to use it as a recipe. To learn about importing a board-based (Kanban) project, such as from a tool like Trello or Jira, go the the how to import a board CSV file article. Note that if you have a Microsoft Project file you would like to bring into Pie, you will first need to convert it to a CSV file.

You can import your project file to either a project or a recipe. 

Format. You must first need to structure the CSV file column names to map exactly to the required format explained below. If importing from Excel, please convert the file first to a CSV saved format.

Permissions. Any user who has "Project Creator" or "Workspace Admin" permission for that workspace can import a project file.

How-To Video

How to import a project into a Pie project or a Pie recipe

1. Obtain your exported project CSV file from from another tool. Or if you're working with an Excel file, first save it as a CSV file.
2. Change the first row header labels to map to the Pie Project CSV column names as shown below. If your imported file is not using one of the Pie columns, then you can ignore it.
3. Remove extra columns that are not needed.
4. IMPORTANT: Every row must have a task name. For slices (project phases/stages), every row needs to have a slice label. If a slice will not contain process. boxes, then leave the box field blank for that slice's task rows.
5. For subtasks, set the parent Task Level as "1" and set the task's subtasks as "2". (Watch above video for an example.)
6. Before you import the file, check to ensure the assigned people names in the CSV file are names already in your workspace. If they don't map, then the import will exclude those names. In the "Member name" field, it should contain the person's first and last name.
7. Once your CSV file is ready and saved on your computer, go to the Project List page or Recipe List page. Click the kabab button to the right of the create project (or create recipe) button and select "Import project CSV file..."
8.  Find the file on your local machine and import.
9. When done, it will give you a results popup. If there are any missing issue comments, you can download that report as a text file to your desktop and check it out.
10. Open your project and check the structure. Some export project tools will have structure in random order, so you may need to drag and drop in Pie to clean it up. For reordering the project pie slices, click the pencil to the right of the pie and then drag the slices up or down to your preferred order.
11. That's it. Again, please watch the video above for details.

CSV Column Names for Mapping

The following are the exact label names you will need to define for mapping columns in your CSV file if you are importing to the Project List page. If you importing to a Recipe List page, you can skip member name, dates, and progress columns.

• Slice
• Box
• Task
• Task level
• Member name (only for a Pie project, not useable for a Pie recipe)
• Start date (only for a Pie project, not useable for a Pie recipe)
• Due date (only for a Pie project, not useable for a Pie recipe)
• Progress (only for a Pie project, not useable for a Pie recipe)
• Role
• Task color tag
• Task text tag
• Description

How Pie Translates Imported Task Progress Percent Complete

This is a section about importing into the Project List page when your file has progress data.

Some project tools have detailed percent complete, such as 34% or 82%. We believe this is overkill, so Pie reduces this noise making it simpler with 10% (In Progress), 25%, 75%, 75%, and 100% (Done). Therefore, our import algorithm will translate numbers in between these percentages to the nearest Pie standard based on the following:

• 1% to 20% will translate to 10% in Pie (In Progress)
• 21% to 40% will translate to 25% in Pie
• 41% to 60% will translate to 50% in Pie
• 61% to 99% will translate to 75% in Pie
• 100% translates to 100% in Pie (Done)