Import from Timetastic

Switching from Timetastic is one sitting’s work: connect with an API token or upload their export, preview, import. Importing is admin-only and lives in three places — Settings → Import / Migrate, the People page’s Import / Migrate button, or during onboarding on the Your people step. (There’s more on why teams switch on our Timetastic comparison page.)

Connect with an API token — the easy way

1. Log in to Timetastic as an admin.
2. Go to Settings → API and find (or generate) an API token.
3. In Rotaleave, set Source to Timetastic — connect with API token and paste it in.
4. Optionally set a leave date range to limit how much history comes over — people, departments and leave types are always fetched in full.
5. Preview, then Import.

The token is used once for the import and never stored. The API pull is better than the file export: it fetches your real leave-type flags (deducted / requires approval / private) and your actual configured public holidays. Work schedules default to Mon–Fri on import — set proper working hours templates afterwards.

Or upload the file export

1. In Timetastic, go to Settings → Export data and download the Excel export — one workbook carrying your people, departments, leave types and holiday history.
2. On the Import / Migrate page, set Source to Timetastic (.xlsx) and upload the file unchanged — don’t rename sheets or edit columns.

What comes across

Column in your export	Becomes in Rotaleave
Email	identifies the person (must be unique)
Firstname / Surname	Name
Is Admin	Role (admin, else employee)
Approver Id	the referenced user becomes a manager
Department	Department
Manager (Departments sheet)	the named user becomes a manager
Allowance for a year	Annual allowance (days)
Archived	Active/archived
Leave Type	Leave type (created if missing)
Start Time / End Time	Start/end dates
Booking Id	used to keep re-runs safe
Working Days	Work schedule

Not imported: remaining balances — enter opening adjustments after migrating — and Time in Lieu (TOIL) rows, which are counted in a warning rather than dropped silently.

Preview first — always

Click Preview before anything else. Nothing is written at this stage — the banner says so in as many words: “Preview only — nothing has been written yet. Review the counts and warnings, then Import.” You get a table of every entity (people, departments, leave types, bookings…) with Created / Updated / Skipped counts, plus any Warnings worth reading. The Import button stays disabled until a preview exists — the dry run isn’t optional, by design.

Import

Happy with the counts? Click Import. You’ll see “Import complete.” and your data is live — check the People page and the wall chart.

Safe to re-run

Re-importing the same (or a corrected) file is safe: people are matched by email and bookings by their Timetastic booking id, so they’re updated, not duplicated. If something looked wrong in the first pass, fix the export and run Preview → Import again. If a file preview fails outright, check it really is Timetastic’s .xlsx export rather than a re-saved CSV.

After the import

• Spot-check a few people’s allowances against Timetastic.
• Decide your bank holiday policy — whether allowances include or exclude them.
• Invite everyone when you’re ready — importing doesn’t email anybody until you say so.