Importing your data

Bring an existing asset register into AssetLab with the guided import wizard - templates, column mapping, and validation included.

Most teams arrive with data - a CMMS export, a consultant's condition study, or the spreadsheet that has quietly run the department for years. The import wizard turns those files into live records without weeks of retyping.

What you can import

The wizard covers some twenty record types, grouped in the order you should import them - each with a downloadable template, and dependent types unlock as their prerequisites arrive:

Infrastructure features are not in this wizard. Linear and spatial assets (roads, water, sewer) come in through the Infrastructure module's own import - see Esri & GIS sync.

Before you start

  1. Start from a template. Each record type has a Template button in Settings → Import that builds an Excel workbook for that type alone: an Instructions sheet with a column-by-column reference (required or optional, expected format, what to enter), the data sheet with required columns marked and example rows to delete, and a Reference Lists sheet holding the sites, buildings, manufacturers, asset types, system classes and so on that already exist in your organization - wired to the data sheet as dropdowns. Your custom fields come through as columns too. Because the lists are drawn from your live data, picking from them is what stops an import minting a second "Main Campus".
  2. Or start from the onboarding workbook. Download onboarding workbook gives you every record type in one file, one tab each in import order, with cross-sheet dropdowns - the better choice when you are populating a new organization from scratch rather than adding to an existing one.
  3. Or export from your current system to CSV or Excel. One sheet per record type.
  4. Name your location columns consistently. The wizard matches sites and buildings by name - "Building B" and "Bldg. B" become two buildings. Rooms are matched within the row's building and assets within its site, so "Mechanical Room" in one branch never links to another branch's. A name that still matches more than one record fails the row with a message naming it - for example a room or asset listed by a work order or PM schedule (Location IDs, Asset IDs) without the row's building or site, or a location whose building name is used at two sites. Add the row's site or building, or rename one of them. A PM schedule's PM Template column must match an existing template's title, so import templates first; a title that matches none fails the row.
  5. Decide your classification mapping. If the source has its own categories, map them to your system classes up front.

The wizard, step by step

Open Settings → Import and pick the record type.

1. Upload

Drop the file - CSV or Excel (.xlsx). For an Excel workbook the wizard reads the sheet named after the record type (the layout both the per-type template and the onboarding workbook use), or the first data sheet otherwise, then reads the header row and samples the data.

2. Map columns

Each source column is matched to an AssetLab field - obvious matches are pre-filled, the rest you assign from a dropdown. Unmapped columns can be skipped, or - for assets, work orders, sites, buildings, and systems - captured into custom fields so nothing is lost.

3. Configure auto-create

The auto-create switch (on by default) lets the import silently create referenced records that don't exist yet: sites, buildings, locations, manufacturers, asset types, and system classes, groups, and systems named in your rows. The wizard previews exactly what will be created before anything is written, and you can set a default site and default building as fallbacks for rows that leave those columns blank. Turn auto-create off when you'd rather the import fail on an unknown name than mint a "Bldg. B" duplicate.

The same step asks for a workspace when you are importing vendors, parts, projects or contracts and your organization runs both Facilities and Infrastructure. Pick Facilities, Infrastructure or Shared for the file as a whole; if you are assigned to one workspace the import files everything there and does not ask. Rows matching a record that already exists keep the workspace it was filed under, so a re-import never re-files somebody else's work.

4. Validate

Every row is checked before anything is written: missing required fields, unknown references, malformed dates. You get a row-by-row report; fix issues in the source file and re-upload.

5. Import

Rows are written, and there is no rollback. For reference records - sites, buildings, locations, systems, system groups and classes, asset types and groups, statuses, work and part categories, manufacturers, vendors, PM templates and level of service measurements - a row that matches an existing record by name updates it in place, so the corrected re-import is the correction mechanism. Every other record type, assets and parts included, creates a new record for every row: re-importing an asset file rejects rows whose asset tag already exists and duplicates untagged ones. Get assets right in the pilot, or edit them in the app afterwards.

Field tips for asset imports

If you have itMap it toBecause
Install / in-service yearInstallation dateDrives age, remaining life, and lifecycle forecasts
Replacement valueReplacement costDrives FCI and the replacement planner
Expected life (years)Useful lifeOtherwise defaults from the asset type
Condition ratingConditionSeeds condition history
Serial / model numbersSerial, ModelEnables warranty and recall lookups later

After the import

Or set it up with an AI assistant

The wizard wants spreadsheet-shaped data. If yours isn't - a PDF condition study, five inconsistent exports, a consultant's report - or you have structure to design rather than columns to map, a connected assistant can read the sources and create the records for you, in the same dependency order this page uses. See Set up & import with AI.