Move your grooming records with a preview before anything is saved.

What OpenDog can import today.

The Bulk Import Hub accepts CSV files for customers, pets, postal-code service areas, services, staff profiles, and historical appointments. Each supported upload opens a preview before save. Import is available inside an authenticated business account; it is not a public upload form and it is not a promise to copy every field from every old system.

• Customers: names plus useful contact, address, notification-preference, and consent fields.
• Pets: pet name, owner match, species, breed, and grooming notes.
• Service areas: postal code with optional city, region, zone, and active status.
• Services: name with optional duration, price, and active status.
• Staff: name, email, and manager, staff, or groomer role; imported profiles start inactive.
• Historical appointments: matched completed, cancelled, or no-show records for reference—not future live bookings.

Import customers first and pets second.

A dog needs the right owner before its record is useful. Customer rows establish or match the household. Pet rows then match an existing same-business customer by owner email, phone, or exact name. Email and phone are safer than name when two clients share a name.

• Use one row per customer and one row per dog; keep household relationships explicit.
• Customer full_name is required. Email, phone, and address fields make matching and route review more dependable.
• Pet pet_name plus at least one owner match field is required. Species, breed, and grooming_notes are recommended.
• Test a two-dog household with different notes, services, prices, and care warnings before preparing the full file.

Use OpenDog’s templates instead of guessing the headers.

The account provides a separate downloadable template for each import type. Columns may be reordered when the header names still match. The preview rejects an unreadable file, blocks files above 5,000 rows, and explains missing columns or invalid rows so the source can be corrected before another upload.

• Keep the original export unchanged and build a separate cleaned working copy.
• Preserve leading zeros in postal codes and use consistent date, time, price, phone, and yes-or-no formats.
• Do not combine customers, pets, services, staff, service areas, and history in one invented spreadsheet.
• Use a small representative file first: normal rows, a duplicate, a missing field, two dogs under one owner, and one old appointment.

Preview new, matched, duplicate, invalid, and skipped rows.

Nothing is saved at upload. The preview summarizes total, new, update, duplicate, and invalid rows. Possible customer matches default to skip until a manager chooses the existing customer, imports a separate new customer, or leaves the row out. Invalid and duplicate rows are skipped rather than silently forced into the account.

• Review the exact source filename and import type before confirming.
• For a possible customer match, compare email, phone, name, address, and existing pet relationships before choosing.
• Correct skipped or invalid rows in the working CSV and upload only the corrected rows again when they belong.
• If the preview has expired or changed, OpenDog blocks the commit and requires a fresh upload.

Keep history separate from the live schedule and money.

Historical appointment import is deliberately limited. Valid rows become history-only appointments after matching existing customers, pets, services, and staff. They do not create future bookings, route stops, invoices, payments, balances, reminders, messages, or outside-provider calls. Financial reference columns remain text context rather than posted financial activity.

• Import customers, pets, services, and staff first, then prove the match fields before adding history.
• Use only completed, cancelled, or no-show historical statuses supported by the template.
• Create future appointments deliberately in the live scheduling workflow after route, service, staff, and client expectations are reviewed.
• Reconcile invoices, deposits, tips, refunds, processor activity, balances, taxes, and accounting outside the history import.

Treat services, service areas, and staff as setup—not finished policy.

CSV rows can establish the basic service menu, postal-code coverage, and inactive team profiles. They do not settle every description, package, deposit, tax rule, map boundary, drive-time zone, permission, or staff invitation. The owner still reviews the operating rules before launch.

• Services require a name; duration, price, and active status are useful starting fields.
• Service areas require postal_code; complex maps, radius rules, drive-time zones, and route-day policies need separate review.
• Staff imports accept manager, staff, or groomer roles and create inactive profiles only.
• Send staff setup links later from the Staff area after the owner confirms the person, role, access, and launch timing.

Protect sensitive data and old-system access.

Move only information the business is authorized to use. Do not place full card numbers, security codes, passwords, private message archives, or unrelated personal information in an ordinary CSV. Keep the old system or a secure export available until the new records, schedule, and required history have been checked.

• Use supported payment-provider setup for cards; never copy complete card details into OpenDog notes or import files.
• Limit files to the active business and remove unused columns before sharing them for support review.
• Store working files in an approved location, restrict access, and remove temporary copies according to the business’s policy.
• Confirm cancellation, export, record-retention, and access terms with the old provider before ending service.

Review the import run and use undo carefully.

OpenDog records recent import runs with the type, file, user, inserted, updated, skipped, and errored counts. Business admins can review row-level outcomes. Supported newly inserted records may be undone individually or by run, but updates, linked activity, and some record types may not be safely reversible.

• Compare preview totals with the completed run before starting another file.
• Open several customers, dogs, services, staff profiles, service areas, and history records—not only the first row.
• Use undo only after reading which inserted records are reversible and checking whether later work now depends on them.
• Keep the cleaned source and the outcome notes so a correction does not create a second duplicate.

Protect the first live grooming week.

A successful import is not the same as a launch-ready operation. Build and review future appointments separately, then test the first route, request, dog record, staff handoff, invoice, reminder, payment status, report, and rebooking decision with sample data before relying on OpenDog for the day.

• Reconcile active customers and separate dogs, especially multi-pet households.
• Confirm current addresses, service areas, services, durations, prices, staff access, and care warnings.
• Protect upcoming appointments in the old calendar until each live booking has been rebuilt and checked.
• Keep confirmation and reminder emails separate from Coming Soon SMS, two-way texting, and automatic ETA texts.

The finish-line import test.

Use one small file set that contains an existing customer, a new household, two dogs, a possible duplicate, an invalid row, a service, a postal code, an inactive groomer, and one old completed appointment. Preview, correct, confirm, review the run, open the records, and then build one future route-day appointment manually.

• Every source row has a clear outcome and every skipped row has a next step.
• Each dog opens under the right owner with the right notes.
• Services, postal codes, and inactive staff start as expected and remain owner-controlled.
• Historical work appears only as history; no invoice, payment, reminder, route stop, or live booking appears by accident.
• The owner can explain what was imported, what was rebuilt manually, what remains in the old system, and when the new workflow is safe to use.

Workflow

Choose the safest next step for the records you have.