Importing Responses (EX)
What's on This Page:
About Importing Responses
You can use the Import Data option in the Data & Analysis tab to upload test or example data, or to upload data collected externally.
Qtip: This page is for importing response data into Employee Engagement or Lifecycle.
- If you are importing response data for the purpose of mapping historical sources to your dashboard, make sure you also check out Uploading Historical Data.
- If you want to import anonymous responses, see the Import Anonymous Responses support page.
- If you are interested in learning how to import your list of participants, please visit our Adding Participants support page.
Preparing & Importing Your Data
You will need to make sure your data file is ready for import. Your data needs to be in a format Qualtrics will understand, and it needs to exactly match the format and content of the survey you’re importing the data into.
Getting a Template File
- Navigate to your Data & Analysis tab.
- Click Export & Import.
- Select Export Data.
- Make sure CSV or TSV is selected.
- Click Download.
File Requirements
For the import to work, the data file needs a special column that identifies the participant the response is from. You’ll notice that the file you exported has a column for the Participant’s Unique Identifier. As the name implies, you must include each respondent’s unique identifier in this column in order to pair the survey answers with the appropriate employee.
The inclusion of this column also makes it so you don’t need to include metadata in your import. The importer recognizes the participant’s unique identifier, and associates the appropriate participant metadata with the response. Any metadata you try to include in this file – manager ID, location, department, participant email, parent unit, etc. – will be ignored.
Be sure to keep your file in CSV, TSV, or TXT format. The importer cannot read any other file types, even if they can also be read by Excel.
Note that the maximum file size is 100MB.
Importing Your Responses
- Navigate to the Data & Analysis tab.
- Click on Export & Import.
- Select Import Data.
- Click Browse and select the file you wish to upload. This can be in CSV, TSV, or TXT format.
- If desired, adjust your Delimiter. Generally this is set to Comma for CSV and Tab for TSV.
Qtip: This option is especially helpful if you are uploading a TXT file. You can specify your delimiter here.
- Click Upload.
- On this window, you can check whether your fields are pulling in correctly and assign different values. See Configuring Your Import on the Survey Platform support pages for more information on this part of the process.
- Click Import Responses.
Legacy: Preparing & Importing Your Data
Getting a Template File
You will need to make sure your data file is ready for import. Your data needs to be in a format Qualtrics will understand, and it needs to exactly match the format and content of the survey you’re importing the data into.
To get a template for a data set you can import, you will need to export the data in Legacy format.
- Navigate to your Data & Analysis tab.
- Click Export & Import.
- Select Export Data.
- Click Use Legacy Exporter.
- Make sure CSV is selected.
- Click More Options.
- Make sure Use numeric values is selected.
- Click Download.
File Requirements
For the import to work, the data file needs a special column that identifies the participant the response is from. You have two options:
- Email: A column named Email containing the participant’s email. These emails must be spelled the same as they are in the Participants section, but they are not case-sensitive.
- Person Metadata: You can also identify responses based on person metadata. It’s advised you use something unique like an EmployeeID field used to identify Employee Engagement participants in the hierarchy. The name format of this column must be Person_MetadataName. For example, Person_EmployeeID will use a metadata called EmployeeID to identify the participant.
The inclusion of one of these columns also makes it so you don’t need to include metadata in your import. The importer recognizes the participant email (or person metadata), and associates any additional metadata with the response.
Be sure to keep your file in CSV or TSV format. The importer cannot read any other file types, even if they can also be read by Excel.
Note that the maximum file size is 5000 rows.
Legacy: Importing Your Responses
- Navigate to the Data tab.
- Click Export & Import.
- Select Import Data.
- Click Use Legacy Importer.
- Click Browse and select the CSV file you saved on your computer.
- If desired or necessary, click More Options to access Delimiter or Enclosure.
Qtip: If the data is not formatted correctly in the preview (e.g., bunched up instead of divided into columns), your data may not be separating (or “delimiting”) correctly. To fix this, choose a different delimiter. For further troubleshooting techniques, visit our CSV/TSV Upload Issues page.
- Check that the number of responses verified is the number of responses in your CSV file.
Warning: If the number of responses shown does not match the number you have in your CSV file, then do not click Import Responses. If you do, the responses will not import correctly and you will need to delete the invalid data. - Click Import.
Once the data is imported, a notice will appear detailing the number of successfully imported responses and any columns and rows that were skipped.
If you are not using one of the provided delimiters in the More Options menu, you can click into the Delimiter text box and type the symbol of the delimiter being used.