Up to 10,000 user accounts can be created from a single tab-delimited file, which must include the login, password, and role of the user, and may include additional attributes, like email or phone.
Batch creation of user accounts comes handy when:
- the same accounts need to be replicated on a different server;
- migrating from a different CAPI system with established accounts;
- the survey is so huge that manual creation of accounts via a web interface would take a significant amount of time.
Creating user accounts in batch mode is available to both the administrator and the headquarter users. For new supervisor accounts the role must be specified as Supervisor (case-sensitive). For interviewer accounts the role must be specified as Interviewer (case-sensitive), and in addition the login of the supervisor must be specified, which determines the team where the interviewer account will be added. Interviewers may be added to existing supervisors, or to new supervisors mentioned anywhere in the users list.
To upload the list of users in batch mode select: Menu →
Teams and Roles → Batch User Upload.
Survey Solutions will request a file with the user accounts to be created, validate the uploaded file, and create the user accounts. If any problems or inconsistencies are found in the uploaded file, they will be reported and accounts not created.
Depending on the number of users and server performance this process may take a few minutes.
File format
The file with user accounts to be created must be prepared as a tab-delimited text file, with the first line listing the column names and subsequent lines (up to 10,000) listing user accounts (one account per each line).
The column names (case-insensitive) are as following:
| Column name | Column meaning |
|---|---|
| Mandatory fields | |
| Login | The login name of the user to be created. Note that the
spelling (capitalization) of the user name will be retained in the reports and
selections in the HQ. Note also, that the specified login name for an account
may not be changed in the future (though the whole account may be locked). The login name must be between 3 and 15 characters long, and may contain only letters, digits and the underscore symbol. The letters must be from Latin (English) alphabet only: 'A'..'Z' or 'a'..'z'. Other letters (Cyrillic, Arabic, etc.) are not valid for usage in login names. |
| Password | The password to the user account. The password is
case-sensitive. An account password must satisfy the following complexity requirements:
|
| Role | The Survey Solutions user role assigned to the newly created user account. It is one of the following words: Supervisor, Interviewer. The spelling of the role is case-insensitive. |
| Supervisor | This value must only be specified for interviewer accounts and denotes the login-name of the supervisor, to whose team this interviewer account is added. The spelling of the supervisor's login-name is case-insensitive. |
| Optional fields | |
| Fullname | Real full name of the user that receives this account. Person's name must be no longer than 100 characters and may only consist of letters, dots, spaces, and apostrophes. |
| Email address of the user that receives this account. An email address must conform to the rules of email addresses. Invalid email addresses may not be stored. | |
| Phonenumber | Phone number of the user that receives this account. The phone number must be numeric and no longer than 15 digits. |
Note that the fields login, password and role are mandatory, and must be filled out for every user in the list. The supervisor field must be specified for the interviewers’ accounts only.
Example file
Here is an example file, which creates a new team of supervisor Heidy Jones, and adds two new interviewer accounts for Mary Smith and John Smith to this team.
Do not use this file to create actual interviewer accounts as it shows the passwords publicly in clear text.
Possible problems that may be reported
Survey Solutions will validate the uploaded list of the users report if any problems are found:
- empty required fields (login, password, role);
- duplicate user accounts;
- passwords not conforming to the security requirements (too short, etc);
- unknown supervisors (all interviewers created must become part of the team of a supervisor known to the system);
- and other checks as described in the fields’ descriptions above.