Importing Data

Overview

Switching club management systems is always a project, but it doesn't have to mean starting from a blank slate. Most clubs have years of accumulated data — member records, reservation history, squawk logs, maintenance schedules — sitting in spreadsheets, old software exports, or homegrown databases. Manually re-entering all of that data would be prohibitively time-consuming and error-prone.

Centerline's CSV importer lets you bring that historical data in during onboarding or at any point afterward. The importer handles the most commonly migrated data types, intelligently guesses column mappings from your existing headers, and gives you a preview before committing anything. You stay in control: if a column maps incorrectly, you fix it before importing. Historical data that comes in cleanly saves your members from having to re-enter their certificate dates, and gives your maintenance coordinator immediate visibility into what's been logged on each aircraft.

Required Role

You must have the Account Owner role to import data.

Accessing Import

Click Setup in the navigation bar, then select the Data & Features tab. The Import Data card appears at the bottom of the page.

What Can Be Imported

Users

Member records including names, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, mailing addresses, emergency contacts, AOPA numbers, member numbers, join dates, roles, and certificate expiration dates (medical, BFR, club review).

Note: Importing a user creates an account record but does not automatically send an invitation email. Members will still need to complete the invitation flow or be sent an invitation separately to set up their login credentials.

Reservations

Historical reservation records including the member who made the reservation, the aircraft, start and end times, destination, comments, and instructor (if applicable). Importing past reservations is useful for maintaining continuity in reporting and for giving members visibility into their own history when they log in for the first time.

Squawks

Historical maintenance issue records including the aircraft, the reporting member, occurrence date, description, grounding recommendation, maintenance comments, and status (open or closed). Importing squawk history ensures your maintenance coordinator has context on recurring issues and past repairs.

Maintenance Schedules

Recurring maintenance items for a specific aircraft, including the maintenance name, frequency, due date, last maintenance date, and last maintenance tach time. Maintenance schedules must be imported one aircraft at a time — you select the target aircraft before uploading the CSV.

Import Process

1. Select data type — Choose what you're importing from the radio button list: Users, Reservations, Squawks, or Maintenance Schedules.
2. Select aircraft (maintenance schedules only) — Choose which aircraft the schedules belong to.
3. Choose File — Click the button to select your CSV file. The importer accepts standard comma-separated values files with a header row.
4. Review column mapping — After the file is parsed, each column from your CSV is shown with a dropdown mapping it to a Centerline field. The importer makes intelligent guesses based on your column headers. Review each mapping and correct any that are wrong. Columns mapped to "-- Skip --" are ignored during import.
5. Check the preview — The first three rows of your data are displayed so you can verify the mappings look correct before committing.
6. Click Import — The button label shows how many records will be imported (e.g., "Import 47 Users"). Click it to process the data.
7. Review results — After import, a success or error message appears. If some records failed validation, the error message explains what went wrong.

CSV Format Notes

• Your CSV must have a header row. The importer uses header names to guess field mappings.
• Standard date formats (YYYY-MM-DD, MM/DD/YYYY, etc.) are accepted.
• For reservations, you can use a combined date/time range column or separate start date, start time, end date, and end time columns.
• Phone numbers can be in any common US format; the importer normalizes them.
• For maintenance schedule frequency, use natural language values like "Annual", "100 hours", or "Monthly".

Tips

• Test with a small sample first. Before importing your full 200-member CSV, try importing 5 rows to verify that the mappings and data format are working as expected. You can re-import the full set after confirming the sample looks correct.
• Clean your data before importing. Duplicate email addresses, malformed dates, and blank required fields are the most common import failures. A quick review in a spreadsheet editor before uploading saves troubleshooting time.
• Import users before reservations or squawks. The reservation and squawk importers look up members by name or email, so the accounts must exist first.
• Import aircraft before maintenance schedules. You need to select an existing aircraft when importing maintenance schedules.
• If your previous system exported data in a format that doesn't translate cleanly to CSV, contact support for assistance with data preparation.