Importing tickets from a spreadsheet
Moving to KAMI Tasks from another tool — or from a planning spreadsheet — does not mean retyping the backlog. The import takes a spreadsheet and turns its rows into tickets.
Where: Settings › Import You need: access to the target project
When to use this, and when not to
| What you have | Use |
|---|---|
| A backlog already listed in rows | Import |
| A brief or a document, not a list | KAMI PM — it drafts the plan |
| A ritual you repeat each cycle | Templates |
| A handful of tickets | Just create them |
Before You Start
- Create the project first, and settle its slug — every imported ticket takes a key from it, permanently. See Projects and access.
- Decide what comes across. Titles, descriptions, types and priorities carry; history and comments from the old tool generally do not. A ticket starts its KAMI life with its content, not its baggage.
- Clean the spreadsheet. Every vague row becomes a vague ticket — the import is faithful, not clever.
How to import
Prepare your file as .xlsx or .csv, upload it on the Import page, and the rows become tickets in your chosen project.
Coming from another tool, the usual route is: export from the old system to a spreadsheet, reshape the columns to match, import here.
What Happens Next
- Tickets appear in the target project immediately, with keys assigned in import order.
- They behave like any other ticket from then on — boards, sprints, automations all apply.
- Nothing is retrospective: imported tickets do not carry the old system's history, and their created dates are the import.
- Tickets without a sprint sit in the backlog until someone plans them in.
Tips
- Import into a test project first if the file is large. Checking twenty tickets landed correctly beats discovering four hundred did not.
- Import in the order you want keys assigned, if key order matters to you. It rarely does, but it cannot be changed afterwards.
- Fix titles after, not before. Get the content in, then run Ticket Standards' fix-to-standard over them — far faster than reformatting a spreadsheet by hand.
- Do not import a dead backlog. Migration is the one free opportunity to drop the tickets nobody will ever do. Importing them moves the guilt rather than the work.
- Assign and prioritise after import, in List view with bulk edit — much faster than per-row columns in the sheet.
Troubleshooting / FAQ
Q: Some rows did not import. Compare the resulting ticket count against the row count rather than assuming success. Malformed rows are skipped.
Q: The tickets came in without types or priorities. Those columns did not match what the import expects. Fix in bulk with List view rather than re-importing, or you will get duplicates.
Q: I imported twice and now have duplicates. The import creates; it does not reconcile. Remove the duplicates with bulk delete in List view.