Data import

Bring people, organisation, time, leave, payroll, assets and roles into Maska HR from a spreadsheet, with templates, column mapping, a review step and an import history.

Setup › Data import is the one place to bring records in from a spreadsheet. The catalogue groups every import by area: People, Organisation, Time & attendance, Leave, Payroll, Assets and Roles. Each card says what it does, whether it adds or updates records, and when it was last used.

You only see the imports you are allowed to run.

The template

Template downloads an Excel file for that import. Every column header has a note: what goes in it, whether it is required, an example and the values it accepts. A second sheet, Instructions, lists the required fields, the fields that must match something already in Maska, the conditional rules, the limits, what needs approval and what happens to rows with errors.

Some templates come filled in with your current data, for example every employee for Update employee details, so you only change what needs changing.

The four steps

Upload an .xlsx or .csv file of up to 10 MB. Only the first sheet is read.
Map columns: Maska matches your column headers to its own and remembers your choices for the next file with the same headers. For imports that update records you can choose which columns to apply and whether a blank cell should erase what is on file (see The erase switch).
Review: every problem in the file at once, sorted into tabs, with fixes you can apply to many rows in one go. See Review.
Import: a sentence above the button says what will happen, for example “This adds 15 people, marks 1 as top of the organisation, skips 3 duplicate lines and creates 2 designations. No invites are sent.” Nothing is saved until you press Import. Then choose All or nothing (the default: if any row fails, nothing is written) or Skip rows with errors (the good rows are written, the rest are listed in an error file).

The erase switch

Erase existing data when a cell is blank is off by default, and then a blank cell simply leaves what is on file. While it is off, Map columns shows no note under the fields.

When you turn it on, two notes can appear:

Used to find the row, every line needs it: the column that identifies the record, such as Designation on the designations import. It is never erased.
Kept as is when blank: a field that can never be erased by a blank cell. This is not an error; the value on file stays.

Review

Maska checks every row in one pass, so you see all the problems together instead of fixing one and finding the next. A row whose manager has its own errors says so, rather than “manager not found”.

The counts at the top double as tabs:

All: every row.
Blocked: rows that cannot be imported until you fix them.
Needs a decision: rows where Maska has more than one reading and you choose.
Corrected for you: small fixes Maska made because there was only one possible reading. Each shows the cell before and after.
Warnings: things to know that do not stop the import.

Corrected for you

Names of locations, departments, designations, capture schemes, leave plans and managers are matched ignoring case, extra spaces and leftovers from an export such as &. So Coffeehouse & Artisanal finds Coffeehouse & Artisanal. Mobile numbers are compared without the country code, so 98… and +9198… count as the same number. Your file is never changed; only the match is.

Decisions

Top of organisation: people with a blank Reports to are listed in one strip. Mark as top records that they report to nobody, the same as typing -. If more than 3 people, or more than 10% of the rows, are blank, the strip asks you to review them one by one instead. Importers limited to some locations cannot mark anyone as top of the organisation.
Duplicate person: two lines with the same mobile but different details open side by side, with the differing cells highlighted. Choose which line to keep; the other is skipped as “Replaced by line N”.
Ambiguous name: when a Reports to name matches more than one person, pick the right one from the list.

Your decisions are kept with the import and used again when you press Import, so what you reviewed is what gets written.

Reports to by name

Reports to takes an Employee ID, mobile or email, or a name if exactly one person has it. A unique name is filled in for you and shown under Corrected for you, for example “Reports to read as Arjun Mehta (1)”. A name must match exactly (ignoring case and spaces); a close spelling is only offered as a suggestion, never applied. If you can only import for some locations and the name could also belong to someone outside them, Maska does not match it.

Fix all

Rows with the same problem in the same column are grouped, for example “17 rows · Leave plan “Leave Policy” not found“. Fix all fixes the whole group at once: leave it blank, pick an existing value (the closest match is suggested) or clear the column. If you have none set up yet, the group links to the screen where you create them, such as leave plans.

Personal details such as mobile, email, date of birth, bank details and amounts are never fixed in bulk; fix them in the file and upload again. You can still fix a single cell in a row, except for those personal details.

Mapping hints

When a column looks mapped to the wrong field, one banner says so, for example “Department looks like your Designation column, 17 of 18 match. Leave it unmapped?”. The rows it breaks are folded under the banner. Unmap column re-checks the file without it, and that mapping is not remembered for your next upload.

On Add employees, a warning also appears when most Annual CTC values look like monthly amounts. It never blocks the import.

Create missing designations and departments

If the file names designations or departments you do not have, you can tick Create them and they are created when you press Import. Only people who import for the whole organisation and can manage the organisation see this. Capture schemes and leave plans are never created this way, because they carry rules; the review links to their setup screens.

Read the warnings

Added employees cannot be deleted, only archived.
Financial details overwrite the bank, PAN and ESI details on file for every row.
Pay group changes are refused for anyone who has already been paid in another group; move them from Payroll › Operations › Move pay group.
Imported overtime goes to approvers; the import never approves it. Import that day’s punches first: a day with no worked overtime is refused.
Some imports recompute attendance, leave or open payroll runs afterwards.

Every import

People

Add employees: many people at once, with their job, manager and login. A blank Employee ID is filled in for you, so rows are matched on mobile. A manager added in the same file must be on an earlier line. Reports to can be a unique name, and a blank one can be marked as top of the organisation in the review. The reporting line starts on the joining date (or the manager’s, if later), so the template has no “Manager from” column. An older file that still has it keeps working; the column is read and marked optional. To change a manager from a later day, use Reporting lines, which keeps its Manager from column. No invites are sent; people already in Maska are skipped.
Update employee details: names, contact details, date of birth and blood group (Add employees takes blood group too). The template comes filled in with everyone. Someone who already has a login keeps their mobile and email; change those from their profile.
Job details: moves, titles, grades, shifts, weekly offs and attendance numbers from a date.
Addresses: current and permanent addresses, also for people who have left.
Previous experience: jobs people held before joining.
Reporting lines: who reports to whom, from a date. Takes a manager’s name when it is unique, like Add employees.
Exit initiation, Exit settlement and Exit initiation and settlement: start, accept and complete exits. A settlement only works once the last working day is today or has passed.
Past employees who have left: people who left before you started on Maska HR. No login, onboarding or leave plan is made for them.

Organisation

Legal entities: the companies people are employed by. Address, PAN and TAN need permission to manage payroll registrations. Licences, GSTINs and documents are added on the company’s page; see Company legal data and documents.
Locations: bring HQ locations into HR and set their entity, state and holiday calendar.
Departments and their heads.
Designations & grades.

Time & attendance

Location geofences: draw or redraw punch fences (30 to 500 m). An identical row is skipped.
Extra punch locations: let people punch inside other locations’ fences for a period.
Shifts and weekly offs: each person’s default shift and weekly-off pattern from a date.
Roster week: a week of shifts for a location, into the draft. Open it from the Scheduler’s All staff board; team boards keep their own import.
Holidays: a holiday calendar from your own sheet.
Attendance punches: in and out punches from another system or a paper register. They show as entered by HR, and importing the same file again skips them.
Overtime for approval: sends overtime already worked out from punches to the approvers.

Leave

Opening leave balances, Leave already taken this year and Carried over from last year. Importing a figure again replaces the earlier one; it is never added twice.

Assets

Add assets, and hand them out from the same sheet.
Update assets: change, move, hand out, take back or write off.
Asset categories and types.

Payroll

Payroll imports run organisation-wide only, need permission to see private details, and never change your own pay.

Pay group assignment: refused for anyone already paid in another pay group.
Financial details: overwrites bank, PAN, UAN, ESI and payment mode.
Investment declarations, Salaries with effective date (a past date pays arrears) and Bonuses.
Opening year-to-date: what each person was paid and taxed this financial year before Maska. Lines left without figures are skipped.
PF options, TDS overrides, ESI overrides, PT overrides, LWF overrides and Component overrides. A locked month refuses only that row.
Payroll on / off: an owner’s payroll can only be switched off by that owner.
Perks: from a month; the taxable value comes from the perk itself.
Loans: active loans with their EMI schedule. Put the loan reference in the file so importing it again skips loans already added.
Component claims: claims already approved. Components that need a bill with every claim cannot be imported.

Roles

Role assignments: give people roles at a scope. It never takes access away, and you can only give access you hold yourself.

Checks on every row

Each import checks names, phones, emails, IDs, bank details and company numbers with the same rules as the forms. The full list is in Input checks. Values saved before these rules are listed under Setup › Data import › Data check; see Data check.

History

The History tab lists every import: the type, the file, the result (for example “Imported 48” or “12 failed”), who ran it and when. From there you can download the error file and the original file. Files are kept for 180 days; the history row stays after that.

Where the old imports went

The imports that used to live on their own screens now open here: People › Employees › Import, the Scheduler’s roster import, Payroll › Operations › Tools › Imports, opening balances, PF options and statutory overrides, holiday calendars, geofences, assets and leave balances. Their buttons still work and bring you to the right import.