When looking to create a large number of customer locations in MachShip it would be very time consuming to create these via the create location method. In order to make this easier MachShip has the facility to import company locations via a CSV file.

How to create the Location Import CSV file

The location import csv file template requires the following headings in order to be successfully imported into MachShip. 

The fields are outlined below, those in bold are required.

• Company Account Code

The company account code will need to be the account code for the company the import is to be assigned against. This code can be found via the view companies page.

To find the code on the view companies page do the following:

1. Select Admin then View Companies.

2. Type in the company name in the search bar.

3. The account code will be found in the second column of the grid. 

• Location Type
  
  The location type will be one of the following: 
  
  
  • DELIVERY
    The location being imported will be used as a Delivery location
    
    
  • PICKUP
    The location being imported will only be used as a Pickup location
    
    
  • Both
    You wish to provide access to the location for both Pickup and Delivery
    
    
• Location Name
  
  The Location Name is a free text field which will represent the organisation or the receiver's name. This field will be utilised as either the from or the to name for all consignments created in MachShip. The Location Name can also be used to retrieve data when creating or filtering consignments. 
  
  
• Location Abbreviation
  
  Most businesses will utilise an internal management system such as a WMS, ERP or accounting platform and there is likely to be an account code or an abbreviation which can be stored in MachShip. This Abbreviation can be utilised when entering in location data when creating consignments and also when searching for consignment(s) on any of the active or completed consignment dashboards.
  
  
• Contact Name, Phone, Email, Address Line 1 (Required), Address Line 2. 
  
  These are standard fields containing information about the company itself. The only required field here will be Address Line 1. 
  
  If you wish to import multiple email addresses, then enter them as a semicolon separated in the same cell. 
  
  
• Suburb and Postcode
  
  These must match up to the Australia Post Suburb listing which MachShip has assigned into the system. Should you require this listing to verify your suburbs please contact support@machship.com
  
  
• Special Instructions
  
  Enter any location-specific instructions which may need to be provided to the carrier. 
  
  
• Very Frequent Address
  
  In order to cut down on the time it takes to enter consignment data, MachShip has the ability to set an address as Very Frequent. When an address is Very Frequent then it will appear as a drop-down above either the Pickup, the Delivery or Both depending upon the location type. The field will appear as below:
  
  
  
  
  The amount of Frequent Addresses is suggested to be kept to less than 30 as the larger it gets, the less effective the dropdown becomes. 
  
  Every row in the import will need to have either an "N" or a "Y" in the cell to indicate that it is either Very Frequent or not. 
  
  
• Pickup and Delivery Default Questions
  These are discussed in more detail here. If you wish to link this location to have default pickup or delivery questions set, simply add the question name to this field on the import template. If you have multiple, please put these in as semi colon-delimited which no space
• Group 1, Group 2, Ground 3, etc
  
  Location Groups are discussed in more detail here. If you wish to add a location to a group via the import function, set the group abbreviation in the relevant cell. There can be as many location groups as desired. 

How to import the Location Import CSV file

Once the csv file has been created t will then need to be imported into MachShip. 

How to navigate to the Import Locations Page

1. Select Create/Manage and either View Location or Create Location.

2. Select the Import Locations tab in the top right-hand corner of the screen.

3. Via the following link.

How to import Locations into MachShip

1. Select the Add Files button and select the csv file you are wishing to upload. 

2. Choose to Ignore Errors or not. 

Due to the large nature of customer listings and the validation that MachShip places on the address data (this is completed so that we can have a high certainty that the carrier will not reject the consignment due to data issues) it is highly likely that errors will appear when importing locations. In order to allow a user to import the locations which are valid, and then deal with the discrepancies, the ignore errors function will upload as many rows as it can and advise of the errors. 

Should you decide to not use the ignore errors feature, then you will need to ensure that all of the rows are valid otherwise the system will produce an error. 

To choose to Ignore Errors click the button below over to Yes.

3. Upload the file. 

To upload the file you can select the Upload All button (if uploading multiple)

or select the Upload button on the relevant file.

Selecting Upload will prompt the status bar to fill with green and the file with either successfully be uploaded or the errors will be presented to the user as below:

If the file is free of errors or you have selected Ignore Errors then the file will appear in the Import Locations section. 

4. Select to Reset Locations

If you would like to remove the current location data in the system (assigned to the company code/s on the spreadsheet) then you can select the Reset Locations check box. 

If you wish to just add the locations to what currently exists in MachShip, then leave this box unchecked. 

5. Import the Locations

To import the locations into MachShip select the relevant file(s) and then select Import Locations.

To select the files, check the box on the left-hand side of the grid. Alternatively, to select all, click the checkbox in the top left-hand corner of the grid. 

Once successfully imported you will see a green success bar in the top right-hand corner.