FAQs

#####Q: How do I reference Supporting Entities such as skills, categories, business sectors, etc. that do not currently exist in the system?

A: Reference and modify supporting entities will be created if they do not exist, and then referenced. Reference only supporting entities MUST exist in the system before they can be referenced. This is because they are read-only via REST and are not able to be inserted/updated by DataLoader. These values must be populated via Bullhorn Admin. Attempting to reference read-only supporting entities that do not exist will result in those items not being added. Please contact your internal IT focal or Bullhorn support specialist in order to ensure your supporting entities contain the correct values.

#####Q: How do I delete a ClientCorporation using DataLoader?

A: ClientCorporations are not Hard or Soft Deletable in Bullhorn so they cannot be used with the delete operation. They can be archived in Bullhorn (like every other entity with a status), but that is an update operation, changing the Status field to Archive.

#####Q: How do I reference external IDs?

A: An External ID, such as the ID for a record coming from a third party application is helpful to have as a primary key when uploading. If multiple rounds of uploading are performed, this ID can be used as the ExistField in order to ensure that data is uploaded from a third party database properly, and there are no multiple records created. To accomplish this, you can utilize a custom field on an entity.

1. Using Field Maps, rename a custom field such as customInt1 to be externalSystemID
2. You can optionally hide this field using View Layout to keep the user from seeing the value
3. Adjust the dataloader.properties file to set <entity>ExistField=externalSystemID
4. Make sure the CSV file you use includes the externalSystemID column

Uploading should now use the externalSystemID as the unique identifier for each record.

#####Q: How do I upload custom objects?

A: Custom Objects are supported via REST as one-to-many relationships on the Entity that they are configured for. The full documentation is available here

#####Q: Can I create new records (Mass Insert) and update existing records (Mass Update) with the same CSV file?

A: Yes, but not when using the ID column. The ID column can only be used for updating existing records in Bullhorn, not for Inserting new records. The ID field is special, in that it is an internally generated identifier used within Bullhorn, which means you can't set or modify it. If you include an ID column in your CSV file, you must reference an existing ID in the system or it will fail. A blank ID cell will default to zero, and that check will fail in the system. Entering an ID that does not exist in the system (beyond the current existing IDs) will also fail.

#####Q: What do I do with the firstName, lastName, and name fields?

A: When editing a person entity using the Bullhorn, changing the first or last name will automatically set the name field to be the concatenation of the first and last with a space between. When interfacing with REST, the name field needs to be populated in the spreadsheet. For instance, if you set firstName to John and lastName to Smith in the CSV file, you must also set name to John Smith.

#####Q: What if I don't specify an ExistsField that matches a column in my CSV file?

A: DataLoader will default to a column named name if it exists for the given entity.

#####Q: DataLoader loads up slowly before performing an action - how can I improve the performance?

A: Upon load, the DataLoader pulls down all of the existing data for entities listed in the frontLoadedEntities=BusinessSector,Skill,Category property. These need to be available for reference in memory before uploading data that uses them. If you are sure that you will not be using these, you can set the field to empty and save that step: frontLoadedEntities=.