Use copy and paste to easily import new financial events into Meisterplan from spreadsheets. This helps you plan your portfolio with the most up-to-date data.
- Prerequisites
- Where to Find
- Choose Type of Data and Prepare
- Step 1: Copy & Paste
- Step 2: Assign Fields
- Step 3: Validate & Edit
- Validation and Error Correction
- Exact Matching of Projects and Milestones
- Handling Existing Financial Events
- Result
In this video we will show you the basics of how the Quick Import works, using the project import as an example:
Prerequisites
Required User Rights
For importing financial events as described in this article, you need to have the following rights:
- To import your actual financial events into the Plan of Record, you need to have the Edit Plan of Record right. To import Actual Time Worked while you are in a scenario, you need to have edit rights for this scenario to access the respective projects.
- Under General, you need to have the Access Financial Data right
- Under Integration Rights, you need to have the Import Data right.
- Under Project and Program Rights, you need to have at least the Projects with Logged-In User as Project Manager option
- Under Detailed Project and Program Rights, you need to have the Add, Change and Delete Financial Events right
- Under Project Field Rights, you need to have at least Read Only rights for the Project Key field.
Supported Formats
You can import data from all common spreadsheet formats, such as Microsoft Excel (both the desktop application and the Office 365 version) and Google Sheets.
Where to Find
In the left Sidebar, click Import and Export:
If you would like to import your financial events into a different scenario than the one currently selected, switch to that scenario by clicking Scenario or Plan of Record in the top left of the header:
Choose Type of Data and Prepare
Click Financial Events and then Start Import:
Updating Financial Events
Existing financial events in Meisterplan cannot be updated. You can either keep existing financial events and add new ones, or delete existing financial events and import the new ones in their place. Find more details here
Download Example Spreadsheet
If you don‘t have a spreadsheet of financial events available, download our example spreadsheet of financial events. This example serves as an outline for configuring your financial events related data. You can also use the example spreadsheet to run a test import in your Meisterplan system.
Your existing financial events will not be overwritten or deleted by the test import. You can delete the imported sample events at any time.
To successfully import your financial events, your spreadsheet should contain one line per financial events, and a column for each data field you would like to import.
Fields That Can Be Imported
These are the required fields that your spreadsheet should contain:
- Project Key: Project Key of an existing project; used to identify a project but cannot be used to update a Project Key
- Type: must be:
- OpEx
- CapEx
- Benefit
- Timing or Due Date: must be:
- the name of a milestone in the project
- "Project Start"
- "Project Finish"
- a custom date; for the correct format see here
- Amount: for the correct format see here
The following are optional fields you can import:
- Category: The name should match an existing finance category in Meisterplan.
- Description
"Project Start" and "Project Finish" as Milestone Names
If you have milestones named "Project Start" or "Project Finish", financial events will always be assigned to these milestones and not to the actual project start or project finish.
Date and Number Formatting
In the Date and Number Formatting for Quick Imports article, you can find all details on how to format dates and numbers in your spreadsheet to ensure they are imported correctly.
Step 1: Copy & Paste
Copy the desired data from your spreadsheet and paste the data in Meisterplan (e.g., using CTRL+V). In this step, you can copy and paste different data as often as needed.
Step 2: Assign Fields
If your imported column name matches an existing field in Meisterplan, Meisterplan will assign it automatically. If you’d like to change or add a field assignment, just drag and drop the Meisterplan field to the desired location. This step ensures your spreadsheet data maps to the appropriate Meisterplan field.
If your spreadsheet contains columns that cannot be matched with Meisterplan fields, they will simply be ignored and the data from the unassigned columns will not be imported.
Step 3: Validate & Edit
Validation and Error Correction
In this step, you can validate and edit your financial events before import. Simply edit the highlighted field by clicking on it. Fields highlighted in dark red indicate an error that will prevent the complete line (i.e., the financial event) from being imported. Fields highlighted in light red indicate an error that will prevent the field from being imported, but not the rest of the line.
Under Import Settings, select whether you would like to keep existing financial events in Meisterplan or replace them with new ones.
Once you’ve corrected all errors, click Import. Your data is now available in Meisterplan.
Exact Matching of Projects and Milestones
In Meisterplan, financial events are assigned to projects, and are linked to either the project start, the project finish, a milestone or a custom date within projects.
To import financial events, the project keys in your spreadsheet and (if relevant) existing milestone names need to match exactly the project keys and milestone names in Meisterplan. This means that each of the milestones should exist only once per project in the relevant scenario in Meisterplan.
Identical Names
Please note that, while Meisterplan generally supports having multiple milestones with the same name in a scenario, importing financial events for these milestones through the Quick Import is not possible.
Handling Existing Financial Events
It is not possible to update existing financial events in Meisterplan with the Quick Import. You can either keep existing financial events and add new ones, or delete existing financial events and import new ones in their place.
Select the right option under Import Settings in step 3 "Validate & Edit":
Result
Imported Financial Events
Once you've clicked Import, your financial events will be available in the Plan of Record or the selected scenario.
