Use this article to import multiple career paths and roles into 15Five at once using a CSV file. When the import is complete, new and updated career paths appear on the Career paths and roles page.
Required role: Account Admin Required plan: Perform or Total Platform
Before You Begin
- Upload all competencies you intend to reference in this CSV before importing. Competencies not already in 15Five must be added first. See Competencies and career paths in Career Hub — Feature Overview for instructions.
- Confirm that employee job titles in their profiles match the role names you plan to use in the CSV. Mismatched titles will not link correctly.
- Prepare your CSV file encoded as UTF-8. Other encodings will cause import errors.
Steps
- Go to Settings > Features > Competencies and Paths.
- Click the Career paths & roles tab.
- Click the download arrow on the Add a career path button in the top-right corner.
- Select Import from CSV from the dropdown.
- Click Download template to download the CSV template.
- Open the template. It contains five columns: Path, Job title, Competency, Skill, and Key behavior.
- Fill in your career path data using the column structure.
- Include only one path or department per CSV file. - Add roles in the order you want them to appear in the path. - Enter only one key behavior per skill row. If a skill appears more than once with different key behaviors, only the first key behavior is imported. - Reference only competencies already uploaded to 15Five. New competencies listed here will be created during import.
- Save the file in UTF-8 format.
- Click Continue to upload.
- Click Create new import.
- Select your saved CSV file.
- Review the summary screen. It lists all new competencies that will be created and other import details.
- Click Publish.
What Success Looks Like
After publishing, the Career paths and roles page displays your new and updated career paths. Any competencies created by the import appear in the competency list under Competencies and Paths.
If Something Goes Wrong
| Issue | Check | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Import fails immediately after file selection | Confirm the file is saved as UTF-8, not UTF-16 or ANSI | Re-save the file as UTF-8 CSV and re-upload |
| A competency in the CSV does not appear after import | Confirm the competency name in the CSV exactly matches the name already in 15Five (case-sensitive) | Correct the spelling in the CSV and re-import, or add the competency manually first |
| Only the first key behavior for a skill imported; others are missing | Each skill row supports one key behavior — duplicated skill rows with different key behaviors drop all but the first | Split each skill-and-key-behavior combination into its own row |
| Career path appears but roles are in the wrong order | Roles import in the order they appear in the CSV | Re-import with roles listed in the correct order; delete the incorrectly ordered path first |
| Job titles in the import do not link to employee profiles | Employee profile job titles must match CSV role names exactly | Update employee profile titles or adjust the CSV role names to match, then re-import |
Not Covered Here
This article does not cover creating a single career path manually. See Create a career path (manual entry).