CSV/Excel Bulk Import Workaround

Resources & Tutorials
1

Hello everyone

I ran into an issue this morning where I needed app users to perform bulk imports into my app. After looking around, I couldn’t find a solution that fit my use case, so I ended up building a simple workaround that is working quite well.

I created a minimal mobile-friendly embeddable web tool that allows users to:

  • Upload a CSV file or Excel file

  • Parse it entirely in the browser

  • Convert it to JSON

  • POST the JSON directly to a webhook URL supplied as a query parameter

The nice thing is that in the default flow, the uploaded file never touches a server. Everything is processed client-side before being sent to your automation workflow.

You can then send the JSON to:

  • Zapier

  • Make

  • n8n

From there, it’s straightforward to create, update, or bulk import records into your database.

Tool

You can add it to an Adalo WebView and pass your webhook URL as a parameter.

?webhook=https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2Fhook

Downsides

  • You’ll likely need an external automation tool (Zapier, Make, or n8n)

  • Depending on your setup, you may need a higher Adalo plan to make everything work smoothly

I could have gone the extra mile and turned this into a full Adalo component, but for now this solution is doing exactly what I need.

Let me know if this helps you as well, or if you’d be interested in seeing it turned into a dedicated Adalo component

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2

Great stuff, Jeorge! I heard that NCM was building a CSV export component but they do have a CSV import component (not published, similar to the one that PragmaFlow built) as I’ve used that in the past for an app but current version only works for PWAs. It’s good to have 2 components for import a CSV file and export a collection as a CSV file like in the collection view, I’ve already noted these features and they’re in the backlog :raising_hands:

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