Troubleshooting for Common Employee File Data Errors

Download Employee File Template

When conducting an employee upload, you may run into an error message similar to the ones in the image to the left. This document will highlight common data issues a client faces whenever they try to Update/ Override a new employee file into the S&I platform and its troubleshooting steps.

• Pro Tip #1: Before doing the upload, make sure to copy-paste all data as ‘Values’. This leaves zero trace of formulas.
• Pro Tip #2: Delete all the extra worksheets that you might have in your Excel workbook.
• Pro Tip #3: Keep the file format as .xlsx or .csv (UTF-8). If you save as a .csv file, please avoid opening the file before uploading as this gets rid of any leading zeros (Ex. 00123 will turn into 123 once you upload the file).

Error #1- Duplicate Unique Value:

A duplicate unique value is a value meant to be unique (such as an employee ID or email) that is repeated more than once on the employee file.

The platform recognizes that this value is meant to be unique, and therefore flags the duplications.

Troubleshooting steps:

• Make sure all the values under the ‘Employee Id’ column are unique in the Excel file.

• Make sure all the values under the ‘Email’ column are unique in the Excel file.

You can use Conditional formatting functionality of excel to identify such duplicate values.

Error #2- Missing Required field.

You may also experience an error message indicating "missing required field." This could result for a few reasons:

1. The Excel file doesn’t have any value for one of the mandatory attributes (i.e. employee Id). Value might be missing either for a handful of employees or for all of them.
2. Excel sometimes treats empty cells as if they have certain values in them. If this happens, you’ll notice error messages like “ employee ‘ ’ is missing required field ‘employee id’ “

A quick way to check if there are any such empty cells is by simply selecting the entire first row and applying filters. If you see something like this (Columns I, J, K, and L as shown in the picture below) then that means that there’s bad data in the Excel sheet which needs to be removed.

Troubleshooting steps:

1. Make sure all the mandatory fields (enabled, employee id, etc.) have appropriate values for all the employee records in the Excel file.
2. Select and delete all the empty columns from the far right. Do the same and delete all the empty rows from the bottom. This will remove any bad data as described in point #2 above.
3. Here are some easy steps to do this:

• • Select the empty row under the last filled row and press on Control+Shift+Down to select all the empty rows below, right-click and delete those cells.
  • Select the empty column to the right of the last column, press on Control+Shift+Right, right-click and delete those cells.

Error #3- Modified Employee Ids.

If you’re certain that your organization has not changed/ updated any employee ids, then make sure that the Combinations of the ‘Employee Ids’ and ‘Emails’ are unique throughout (Excel file + Platform (Active + Inactive)) while doing the employee uploads.

Troubleshooting steps:

1. Copy the employee Id that is producing the error and look for it on the platform (Active & Deactivate). If it exists, note down the associated email.
2. Search for the same email in the Excel file and observe the employee Id.
3. You’ll notice that for the same email, there are two different employee Ids assigned. Please review both records and amend the data as per in the platform or the Excel as per the following scenarios:

• • If the employee Id in the platform is now associated with some other employee, then delete the email value from the platform- This is strictly not recommended as at WorkTango, it’s really important for each and every employee to have a unique employee Id. Please reach out to us instead of making such amends by yourselves.
  • If the employee Id in the platform isn’t the current Id of the employee and the one in the excel reflects the latest one, then ‘update’ the employee Id in the platform using the ‘edit’ (pencil) button right next to it.
  • If you accidentally used the wrong email address or the employee Id for the employee in excel, then enter the correct data and save the file.