What's a bulk upload?

What's a bulk upload?

A bulk upload will let you add large amounts of workforce data into the Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set (ASC-WDS) without the need to add that data manually.

Who should do bulk uploads?

Skills for Care recommend bulk uploads for local authorities and large private or voluntary sector employers who need to add data for a number of workplaces.

Individual workplaces can also choose to bulk upload, but our findings suggest those with fewer than 50 staff records usually add their data manually.

What you need to know

You can only bulk upload CSV (comma-separated values) files. Previous experience of working with CSV files is helpful, but not necessary.

Before you do your bulk upload, make sure you have unique references for each workplace and each staff record.

References are used by ASC-WDS to match staff records to a workplace.

After checking your references, download your current data into each file type you want to upload (workplace, staff and training) and update the records in those files if necessary.

You always need to upload a staff file with a workplace file, but the training file is optional.

You can download codes and guidance for each file type you need to update (workplace, staff and training).

After selecting the files you want to upload, use ASC-WDS to validate them. You'll be able to view any errors and warnings in an error report.

A bulk upload is only complete once all the errors have been fixed, your files have passed validation and you click the Complete the upload button.
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