To test your organization and observe employee behavior during simulated phishing attacks, you must add your employees to the platform.
This article explains how to do this by importing a CSV or Excel file.
1 – Objectives
Add new employees from a CSV or Excel file
Update existing employee profiles already present on the platform
2 – Prerequisites
To import users into the platform, you must first validate all domains associated with their email addresses.
📚 Example
If you have validated the domain arsen.co but your file contains users whose email addresses end with @example.com, those rows cannot be imported, because the example.com domain has not yet been validated. They are skipped and listed at the review step, while the other rows can still be imported.
Before importing your users, make sure that:
every domain used in their email addresses is validated;
you have completed the validation process for any domain that is not yet validated.
👉 If needed, refer to the procedure for validating a domain.
3 – File format
Use a CSV or Excel file with the following structure:
First row: header containing column names
Following rows: information for each employee to import
firstname | lastname | phone | language | memberOf | |
James | Bond | +44 | EN | MI6 |
👉 Download a sample CSV file. You can also click Download the template in the import window.
Required fields:
firstname: text
lastname: text
email: valid email syntax (RFC 5322)
Optional fields:
language: valid ISO 639‑1 two‑letter code. If the language is blank or unknown, an existing employee keeps their current language and a new employee gets your organization’s language
phone: must start with “+” (E.164 international format). An invalid phone number is reported in the summary email and the phone number already stored is kept
memberOf: comma‑separated group names in a single cell
If a column is missing from your file, the stored value for existing employees is kept. If a required column is missing, Arsen asks you to map it to one of the columns of your file.
4 – How to import employees from a file
To import your employees from a properly formatted file, follow the steps below.
4.1 – Open the import window
Go to the Employees section.
Click the ⋮ menu at the top right of the page, next to
Add employee.Click
Import employees.
4.2 – Choose a file
In the Import employees window, drop your CSV or Excel file or click Choose a file to select it from your device.
4.3 – Read what will happen
Arsen compares your file with your employee list and shows the result as counts:
new employees
employees already in the list whose information changes
unchanged employees
rows that cannot be imported
Rows that cannot be imported are skipped instead of blocking the whole import. You can download them with the reason for each one, fix them and upload them again. Repeated email addresses in the file are merged.
4.4 – Choose the options and start the import
The Update switch appears when some employees of your file already exist with different information. It is off by default: turn it on to update their profiles.
Remove, available under More options, removes the employees who are not in your file but still exist in your Arsen employee list. It is not available while some rows are skipped.
The import button states the outcome, for example “Import 230 employees” or “Import 236, remove 9”. Click it to start the import.
⚠️ Warning
Removing an employee through an import permanently deletes all associated results and history.
4.5 – Confirmation
Once the import has started, you will receive an email within seconds or minutes confirming that the process is complete.
This email may end up in your spam folder.