If you have projects outside of Riipen that you’d like to use within an experience on Riipen, importing them is often the best strategy. This allows you to migrate those projects into your experience and manage everything from one place. If the company is already on Riipen, you can import these projects as match requests, ensuring that both you and the employer formally accept the project and confirm the scope directly on the platform.
Main benefits of importing match requests to experiences:
Keep all of your match requests and projects organized in one place.
Ensure project scope and acceptance are confirmed by both you and the employer on Riipen.
General
Match request imports are available for experiences only. Educators can upload match requests in bulk using the Riipen importer, which will create project proposals directly linked to their experience.
Outcomes
When importing match requests into an experience, several outcomes will occur:
If the company does not exist on Riipen:
The company is created.
If the employer user does not exist, they are also created.
The project is created in a closed state.
A match request is created in a pending state between the project and your experience.
The match request is treated as a project proposal.
A match revision is created with
match_hours,match_max_teams, and (if applicable) dates set via the upload.
If the company already exists on Riipen:
A match request is created with the project details.
Existing company administrators are notified and can respond following the usual match request process.
Import template
When importing match requests into your experience, Riipen will accept a comma-separated values (CSV) file. You can download the template file attached to this article to get started.
Required fields
Company name
Type: String
Description: The name of the company the project is for. This field is case sensitive.
Email
Type: String
Description: The email address of the employer who will run the project on behalf of the company. This field is case insensitive. If left blank, the project will be tied to the company as a whole (similar to standard project proposals).
Project name
Type: String
Description: The name of the project being imported.
Project details
Type: Rich text
Description: A description of the project’s objectives and goals, summarizing the problem and expected solution.
Match hours
Type: Integer
Description: Estimated number of learner hours required to complete the project.
Match max teams
Type: Integer
Description: The maximum number of teams that can be matched to this project.
Start date*
Type: Date
Description: The start date of the project (
yyyy-mm-dd).
End date*
Type: Date
Description: The end date of the project (
yyyy-mm-dd).
* Only required if dates are set per project in the experience.
Optional fields
Project deliverables
Type: Rich text
Description: A description of the tasks learners will complete as part of the project.
Categories
Type: Array of strings
Description: A comma-separated list of categories to apply to the project. Must match the available category list on Riipen.
Requester notes
Type: Rich text
Description: A message to the employer if the company already exists on Riipen.
Mentorship offered
Type: Boolean
Description: Enter 'True' to indicate mentorship type is offered, or leave blank to indicate 'False.' View mentorship types.
Note: The column header for optional fields must still be included in your import file, even if you leave the individual cells blank.
How to
Prepare an import file
To import match requests into your experience, follow these steps:
Download the import template attached to this document. Your next step will largely be dependent on where you are wanting to import your data from. This may be from a spreadsheet or a survey tool for example.
Export your data from your external system if applicable.
Input the data into the provided template to match its format.
For a full technical breakdown of import file formatting, see this article.
Run an import
The following steps can be completed by administrators of any experience:
Navigate to your experience
Click the "Settings" tab
Select the "Imports" tab.
Click the "New" button
In the presented form, select:
Type - Experience match requests
Source file - Upload your import file
Click "Submit"
Your import file will now begin to be pre-processed. Riipen will check each record in your file for potential errors including formatting issues or missing data. You will be able to see the progress of this pre-processing on your screen now.
Once pre-processing is complete you will be shown each record of your import file and it's pre-import status which shows you how the data was interpreted by Riipen. This is a good time to check over all your data to make sure it looks correct and you haven't made any mistakes in your original import file.
Once you are happy with your import records, you can then run your import by pressing the "Run" button.
Once your import has finished running, Riipen will email you to let you know with a link back to your import so you can view the final status.
View / monitor an import
While your import is running, or at any time, you will be able to see it's progress along with each individual record and its accompanying import status which is either Success or Error. While the import is running you can safely navigate away from this page and return to it at any point to check the import status.
To return to and view an import:
Navigate to your experience
Click the "Settings" tab
Select the "Imports" tab.
Click the import you would like to monitor
Error handling
See this article for full details on how to handle import errors.