When you're moving a whole staff list onto Edunile — say, at the start of a new academic year — adding everyone one at a time is slow. The bulk upload lets you do it from a single spreadsheet in a couple of minutes. You'll still need to come back and tick roles for each person afterwards (see the staff guide), but the basic accounts will all be in place.

Steps

Step 01

Open the Batch Upload page

From your dashboard menu, go to Batch Upload. Click the Staff tab at the top.

Batch Upload → Staff

Step 02

Download the template

Click Download Template to get a CSV file with the right column headings. Open it in Excel, Google Sheets, or any spreadsheet program. Don't rename or rearrange the columns — just type your data underneath each one.

The columns are:

first_name — required.
last_name — required.
email — required. This becomes the staff member's login. Use one personal email per person; don't reuse a shared school address.
phone — optional but recommended (used for WhatsApp and SMS notifications).
subjects — optional. For teachers, list the subjects they teach, separated by commas. For example: Mathematics, Physics. Leave blank for non-teaching staff.

Step 03

Fill in your staff list

Type one staff member per row. A few things to watch out for:

Emails must be unique across your school. Two staff can't share the same email.
For subjects with a comma in the name (e.g. Health, Sport, and Physical Education), wrap the whole subject list in double quotes so Excel doesn't split it up. Most schools won't hit this.
Spaces in names are fine — Mary Anne and O'Connor both work without any escaping.

Save the file when you're done. CSV format is fine; Excel .xlsx also works.

Step 04

Upload the file

Back on the Batch Upload Staff tab, drag your file into the upload area or click to pick it. Edunile reads the file and shows you a preview of every row.

Rows with missing or wrong information are marked in red — usually missing names or an email that's already in use. Fix them directly in the preview, or save the spreadsheet and re-upload.

Red rows must be fixed before the import can start

Step 05

Start the import

When every row looks right, click Start Import. Edunile creates each staff account in the background. For 20–40 staff, this takes under a minute.

When it finishes, each staff member receives a welcome email with their login details and a link to set their password.

Step 06

Set roles for each staff member

A new staff member doesn't have any role by default — they can sign in, but they won't see anything sensitive. Open each profile and tick the roles that apply (Class Teacher, Subject Teacher, Bursar, etc.). See add staff and assign roles for what each role does.

If you mostly hired teachers, Staff → Teachers is the fastest way to do this — every row in the table has a quick Edit Roles action.

Common issues

The whole file is rejected with 'invalid format': Edunile only accepts CSV (.csv) and Excel (.xlsx, .xls) files. If you've been editing the file in Google Sheets, use File → Download → Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) or Comma-separated values (.csv) before uploading.
A row keeps being rejected with 'email already exists': That email is already on another staff or student account. Check your existing Staff → Teachers and Staff → Non-Teaching Staff pages — they may already be in the system. If they should be there but with a different email, change the email on the spreadsheet and re-upload.
My teachers said they didn't get the welcome email: Give it 2–3 minutes — emails arrive quickly but not instantly. If still missing, ask each person to check their spam folder for a message from Edunile. From your side, go to Staff → (the teacher's profile) and click Resend Welcome Email to send a fresh one.
Half the staff are teachers and half are non-teaching — do I upload them separately?: No, you can upload them all in one file. After the import, the people you marked with subjects show up under Staff → Teachers and the ones without subjects show up under Staff → Non-Teaching Staff. You can move people between the two groups later from their profile.
Can I import staff with a photo or PDF, like the student import?: Not yet. The photo/PDF Smart Import currently works for students and fees only. A staff version is on the roadmap. For now, use the spreadsheet method on this page.