CSV stands for ‘Comma-Separated Values’. This is a generic format that allows you to import data from any other system. You just need to get the data in the proper CSV format first.

You will need two .csv files: patients.csv and appointments.csv. They must both be in the same directory. In addition, each csv file must have the columns described below. You can have extra columns (they will be ignored) but all the columns listed below must be present. The column names are not case-sensitive, but any spaces must match exactly – e.g. ‘PatientID’ is not the same as ‘Patient ID’.

Note that you can easily edit a .csv file with Excel.

patients.csv

PatientID – A unique identifier for the patient. ** THIS FIELD IS REQUIRED ** If you don’t have one, just use integers starting at 1.

Active – TRUE or FALSE

LastName

FirstName

KnownAs

Title

DateOfBirth – d/mm/yyyy e.g. 25/12/1981

Address1

Address2

City

State

Postcode

Country

Paid – This is the current balance in the patient account. Positive for credit, negative for money owing.

PhoneHome – in the form 1234 5678 or 07 1234 5678 or +61712345678

PhoneWork – in the form 1234 5678 or 07 1234 5678 or +61712345678

PhoneMobile – in the form 0400 123 456 or +61400123456

Email

Reminder – TRUE or FALSE

Occupation

Notes – any admin notes

appointments.csv

PatientID – must be same id as used in patients.csv

Practitioner – The practitioner name

AppointmentType – The name of the appointment

Time – date and time of the start time for the appointment. d/mm/yyyy  h:mm AM e.g. 25/11/2020  11:00 AM

Sample csv Files

Here are (almost) empty csv files for you to start with. Each has one entry to show you the idea. Of course, you should delete that line.

Importing

Once you have your data in this format, select ‘CSV’ as the source type in the importer, and click ‘Find’. Select the patients.csv file.

Then you just import the same as described here.

 

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