# Import and export > Bring people and the scores they already have in from a spreadsheet, take everything out as a sealed file, check every import before it happens, and never count an import against your plan. For: Admin, Owner Canonical: https://emmauos.com/docs/import-and-export ![Data: export your church, and import from a file with a preview.](/docs-img/data.png) Import & export has three tabs: **Spreadsheets** for people and scores, **Backup file** for a whole-church file, and **Access** for who may do what. The assessments themselves live in the [Assessment library](/docs/questions-and-trials#assessment-library). ## A spreadsheet For people, or scores they already have on another assessment like APEST or SHAPE. Built for a large church bringing in years of data at once. 1. **What's in it**: *Scores on* one of your [other assessments](/docs/questions-and-trials#other-assessments), or *People only*. 2. **Upload** a CSV (save Excel or Numbers as CSV), or **Paste** cells copied from a spreadsheet. A header row and an **Email** column are all it needs. The file is read in your browser. 3. **What each column holds**: EmmauOS guesses from the headers (Email, Name, First name, Last name, Phone, Birth year, Date taken, each dimension by name, and on a people sheet a stage per [track](/docs/pipelines)). Change any guess, or leave a column out. 4. **Check** reads every row and changes nothing: how many are new, already here, updated, and which rows can't go in and why, by row number. 5. **Import** sends the rows in parts with a progress bar. - Each row finds its person **by email**. Someone not on your list is added, unless you turn that off. For a person already here, only empty fields are filled; nothing is overwritten. - **Running the same sheet again adds nothing.** A score row is the same row when it has the same person and date (or the same row id, if you map one); a corrected score updates it. If an import stops part-way, import again: what went in stays, and nothing is duplicated. - **Stages**: a people sheet can carry one column per track, headed like "Belong stage", holding a stage by name. A plain **Stage** column fills your first (main) track. A person already on a track keeps their stage; an import only fills tracks they haven't started. An import moves nobody forward, so it writes nothing on their timeline and opens no Planning Center card. - A score outside the assessment's range, a date in the future, a stage your track doesn't have, or a row without an email is listed, and the other rows go in. - For an assessment that started from APEST, SHAPE or a gifts inventory, **Also update their EmmauOS gifts** (or, for APEST, their lean) turns the same scores into an imported result on your EmmauOS test, so profiles and serving matches use them. The scores stay on their own assessment too. These results aren't marked as shared with the pastoral team, because the person didn't choose that here. - Nobody is emailed, and imports don't count against your plan. **Download a spreadsheet** gives your people, with a stage column for each track, or everyone's scores on one assessment, as CSV. A people download imports back as it is. People who took EmmauOS's assessment without agreeing to be contacted are left out. ### One profile across tests A person can have results from more than one test: EmmauOS's own, an imported APEST and a later SHAPE. Each other assessment shows on its own on their page. Their EmmauOS profile uses the **latest gifts** and the **latest Ephesians 4 lean**, whichever EmmauOS result each came from. When the two come from different results, the person's page shows **Profile across tests** with where each came from. ## A backup file **Export a backup**: one file with every person, result, score, word, consent flag, placement, conversation, ministry and setting, in a documented JSON format. With sensitive fields, the file is **sealed with a passphrase** you choose, because it contains what people wrote; without the passphrase it is unreadable, and EmmauOS doesn't keep it. Settings decides who can export: admins and the owner, or the owner alone. **Import a backup** from an EmmauOS export (moving your whole church, or restoring) or from the EmmauOS **WordPress plugin** your church may have used before. Upload the file and EmmauOS shows a **preview**: how many people, how many results, how many look like people already here (matched by email, then by name), and anything it can't read. Nothing is written until you confirm. - **Duplicates** are merged onto the existing person, with the imported result added to their timeline. - **Consent is copied** as it was given, including do-not-contact. An import never makes anyone more visible than they chose to be. - **Imports never count** against your plan's yearly assessments. - Imported results are marked *Imported* on the person's page, under **Gifts**. - **Planning Center**, if connected: each imported person who shared with the pastoral team, and who isn't someone who may be under 18, is looked up the way a new result is. Anyone already serving on a team linked to a ministry is [placed there for you](/docs/placements). This runs in the background, 10 people every thirty seconds, so a large import takes a while to settle. ### When one person moves churches A backup is for the whole church; don't send it to another church for one person. Someone who moves takes their own results from [My Path](/docs/my-path#moving-to-a-new-church), at their request, choosing again whether to share with the new church. Their result arrives as an import with "brought from" your church on their timeline. Staff notes, confirmations, AI first looks and Planning Center data never travel that way. ## Your Ask AI chats Pastors, admins and the owner can download their own [Ask AI](/docs/ask-ai) chats as a JSON file from **Spreadsheets**. It holds only your chats, never anyone else's, and pastors without import or export rights see this one row. Downloads are noted in the activity log. ## With an AI agent Everything here is also an [AI agent](/docs/ai-agents) tool: *save-instrument* and *list-instruments* for other assessments, *import-instrument-results* and *import-people* for spreadsheets (500 rows a call, a dry run first by default, the same row-by-row report), and *export-people*, *export-instrument-results*, *export-assessment* and *import-assessment* for the rest. An agent never gets people who didn't agree to be contacted or anyone who may be under 18. ## What stays out The *something I have walked through* answer is exported only in the sealed file and only to the owner, and is never in the CSV. Confirmation and result links aren't exported, because they are the member's, not the church's.