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How to Import or Export Participants via CSV

Importing and Exporting Participants with CSV​

Score7 supports CSV files for importing and exporting both participants and team/player rosters. This is especially helpful for recurring tournaments, larger events, or organizers who prefer working in spreadsheets before finalizing online.

What You Can Do with CSV​

  • Bulk add or update participants (individual or teams)
  • Import rosters with players assigned to teams
  • Export participants for backup, reuse, or sharing
  • Speed up setup for school, club, or multi-division events

Exporting Participants to CSV​

  1. Go to your tournament’s Participants or Teams section.
  2. Click the Export CSV button (typically at the top or bottom of the page).
  3. A .csv file will be downloaded with current participant or team/player data.

This file includes:

  • Participant or team names
  • Player lists (if teams are enabled)
  • Logos or avatar links (if applicable)

Importing Participants from CSV​

  1. Go to the Participants or Teams page.
  2. Click Import CSV.
  3. Choose your file and confirm. Importing replaces the current participants and clears any existing results — Score7 shows a warning before the upload runs so you can back out if needed.

Make sure your CSV is formatted correctly. At minimum:

For individual participants:​

Name Alice Bob Charlie

For teams with players:​

Team Name,Player Name Red Rockets,Alice Red Rockets,Bob Blue Blasters,Charlie

Optional columns:

  • Logo/Image URLs for teams or players
  • Custom identifiers or grouping info (advanced use)

File format and separators​

Score7 accepts CSV files with three separators automatically: comma (,), semicolon (;), and tab. If you work in Excel and live in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Portugal, or any other locale whose decimal separator is ,, your "Save As > CSV" output uses ; — those files upload directly, no conversion needed. If your file starts with an Excel sep=; directive on line 1, that hint is honoured too.

A few error messages you might see:

  • "This file looks like a PDF / spreadsheet / image" — the file you uploaded isn't a CSV. Score7 checks the file's contents (not the extension), so renaming a PDF to .csv doesn't help. The message includes the filename you uploaded and how to convert it. For Excel and other spreadsheets: open the file, then File > Save As, choose CSV. For a PDF or image: retype the data into a spreadsheet first, then export as CSV.
  • "Score7 can't read this CSV's text encoding" — the file is saved as UTF-16. In Excel, choose Save As and pick CSV UTF-8 specifically.
  • "The CSV file is empty" — the file has no usable content. Re-export from the source and try again.
  • "We couldn't find a separator we recognise" — your file isn't using ,, ;, or tab. Re-export from Excel as Save As > CSV UTF-8 and try again.
  • "We couldn't tell whether your file uses commas or semicolons" — some rows use one separator and others use another. Open the file in a text editor and make every row consistent.
  • "We couldn't read this CSV" — the generic parse error. Most often a stray quote or a row with the wrong number of columns. Open the file in a text editor and check that every row has the same number of fields.

When the separator is fine but the contents have a problem, Score7 lists every issue in a single alert with the exact row number from your spreadsheet — Row N matches row N in Excel or Sheets — so you can fix and re-import.

For more on the wrong-file-type cases (PDF, Excel, image, UTF-16), see CSV Import Errors Explained.

Best Practices​

  • Always export first if you're unsure about formatting.
  • Make small test uploads if running a large event.
  • Logos must be hosted online; paste full image URLs in the appropriate column.
  • You can re-import CSVs from past tournaments to reuse participants or rosters.

Alternative: Import from Another Score7 Tournament​

You can also import participants directly from one of your past tournaments:

  1. Click Import from Tournament
  2. Choose the source tournament
  3. Select whether to add or replace participants
  4. Logos will be copied too

Need help creating your CSV file? Open the Import CSV dialog and click Download an example CSV at the top — you'll get a ready-to-import template with the right column names and a couple of example rows. Still stuck? Contact us and we can walk you through the format.

Next steps in Score7

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