Import from Leave Dates

Rotaleave reads Leave Dates report downloads directly — CSV or Excel, whichever you prefer. Importing is admin-only, from Settings → Data → Import / Migrate, the People page’s Import / Migrate button, or during onboarding on the Your people step — set Source to Leave Dates.

Get your Leave Dates exports

1. Log in to Leave Dates as an admin.
2. Go to Reports → Employees and download it (CSV or Excel) — required.
3. Optionally go to Reports → Leave and download it for the date range you want to bring across.

Leave Dates has no self-serve API, so the file export is the supported route.

What comes across

Column	Becomes in Rotaleave
Email	identifies the person (must be unique)
First name / Last name	Name
Department	Department
Role	Role (Administrator becomes admin, Approver becomes manager, User becomes employee)
Employment start date	Start date
Annual allowance	Annual allowance (in your organisation’s unit, days or hours)
Status	Active, or archived for leavers
Leave type	Leave type (created if missing)
Status (leave file)	Approved, requested (pending), declined or cancelled; rows with any other status are skipped with a warning
Start date / End date	Start/end dates
Half day	Half-day/day-part
Reference	used to keep re-runs safe

Remaining balances are never imported — enter opening adjustments after migrating. Anything the importer doesn’t recognise is listed as a warning, never dropped silently.

Working days: the file has none, so everyone starts on Monday to Friday, full days — unless their department already has a default working-hours template in Rotaleave, in which case they get that. Set proper working hours templates afterwards.

Leave types: new ones are created as needing approval, and whether each comes off the allowance is guessed from its name. Only a type called exactly Sick, Sickness, Sick leave, Unpaid, Unpaid leave, Bank holiday or Personal/carer’s is set not to (capitals don’t matter); every other name, such as Sickness absence or Maternity, is set to come off the allowance. The preview lists every guess as a warning, so read them before you import.

Preview, then import

1. Upload the Employees file (and the Leave file if you have one).
2. Click Preview — nothing is written yet. You get Created / Updated / Skipped counts per entity plus any warnings.
3. The Import button stays disabled until a preview exists, and while the preview shows row errors — the dry run isn’t optional, by design.
4. Happy with the counts? Click Import and look for “Import complete.”

The import is refused if it would leave an organisation with no trial or subscription with more than 10 people, and it can’t be committed from the practice company.

Running it again

People are matched by email and leave records by their reference, so re-importing the same or a corrected file updates rather than duplicates. Nothing is duplicated, but an update puts the file’s values back over what you changed in Rotaleave. This applies just as much to a first import into an organisation that already has people:

• People. A matched person takes the file’s values again — name, role, department, start date and allowance. A blank start date or allowance in the file blanks it in Rotaleave, and the allowance unit goes back to your organisation’s unit. Their working days are reset to their department’s default working-hours template, or to Monday to Friday if the department has none.
• Roles, including yours. Role is set from the file’s Role column every time: Administrator becomes admin, Approver becomes manager, and User, a blank or anything the importer doesn’t recognise becomes employee (so does everyone, if the file has no Role column). If your own email is in the Employees file and your row isn’t marked Administrator, importing takes away your admin role in Rotaleave — and if you were the only admin, nobody in the organisation can give it back. Check your own row before you import.
• Archived or not. Status follows the file’s Status column. Someone you archived in Rotaleave who is active in the file is un-archived (back to invited, and counting as a seat); someone the file marks as a leaver is archived.
• Department managers. Every department named in the file has all its managers removed, because the file names none (an Approver gets the manager role, but isn’t made the manager of a department). Put them back under Settings → People & structure → Departments afterwards.
• Leave types. A leave type in the Leave file with the same name as one you already have is overwritten: colour, whether it comes off the allowance (guessed from the name, as above), needs approval (set to yes), private (set to no) and removes presence (set to yes).

Iterate until the preview is clean.

After the import

• Spot-check a few people’s allowances against Leave Dates.
• Decide your bank holiday policy.
• Invite everyone when you’re ready. Importing sends no invitations itself, but it doesn’t stay silent: anyone imported as a current member of staff who hasn’t accepted is automatically emailed a reminder with a sign-up link 2 days after the import, then at 7, 14, 30, 60, 90 and 120 days. The reminders stop once the person accepts, is archived or uses the unsubscribe link in the email, and none are sent while the organisation is closing. People imported as archived get none. There’s no setting to hold the reminders back, so import when you’re ready for people to hear from Rotaleave.