Importing patients from Excel: how to prepare your spreadsheet

To import patients from Excel without nasty surprises, prepare a sheet with one row per patient and the column names in the first row, keep one column that identifies each patient (code, record number or DNI, the Spanish national ID number), and check the preview before importing. In Mi Clínica, importing the same file again does not create duplicates and every import can be undone.

How to prepare the sheet before importing

A well-prepared sheet is half the import: if the software can read it without having to interpret anything, almost no rows will be rejected. Before uploading it, check this:

• One row per patient and the column names in the first row. Errors are flagged with the row number of your sheet, so you will find each one in your Excel file.
• A single sheet with the data. From an Excel workbook, Mi Clínica reads the active sheet: keep the patients on a single sheet and remove the others from the copy you are going to upload.
• .xlsx or .csv format. If your previous software exports in another format, save it first as .xlsx or as CSV.
• In CSV, semicolon or comma as the separator: the software detects which one you use. And it reads accents in both UTF-8 and the encoding Excel usually saves with on Windows.
• Size. Each file accepts up to 50 MB and 200,000 rows; if your export is larger, split it into several files.

Dates can be an Excel date or text with day, month and year (dd/mm/yyyy) or the other way round (yyyy-mm-dd). A date of birth that cannot be understood does not stop anything: that patient comes in with an empty date and a warning so that you can complete it later.

Which columns to include and what to call them

The only essential column for importing patients is the name: it can come as one column for the first name and another for the surnames, or as a single column with the full name. The rest is optional, but the better each patient is identified, the better the appointments and re-imports will turn out.

Data	What it is for	Column names it recognises (in Spanish)
First name and surnames	Essential	Nombre, Apellidos, Primer apellido, Nombre y apellidos
Code, record number or DNI	Identifying the patient when re-importing and linking their appointments	Código, Nº historia, NHC, DNI, NIE
Telephone, mobile and email	Contact	Teléfono, Móvil, Correo, Email
Date of birth	Knowing whether the patient is a minor	Fecha de nacimiento, F. nacimiento
Allergies	They go into the general history and the record alert	Alergias
Guardian	For minor patients	Tutor, Tutor legal, Parentesco, Teléfono tutor
Remarks	Patient notes	Observaciones, Notas, Comentarios

Column names are compared regardless of upper or lower case or accents, and columns it does not recognise are ignored. If your export calls a column something else, the simplest thing is to rename it in the sheet to one from the table.

If there is no code, record number or DNI column, recognising each patient when importing again is less reliable. It is worth bringing at least one of the three.

And take the chance to remove what you do not need. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires that data be “adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which they are processed”, and also “accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date”. An export going back years usually brings fields nobody uses and telephone numbers that no longer belong to that patient: now is the time to leave them out.

Duplicates: within the file and with what you already have

Duplicates are best resolved before importing rather than after, and Mi Clínica looks for them in two places: within the file itself and among the patients you already have.

• Same code or same DNI in two rows of the file: the second row does not come in, and the warning says which row the first one is on.
• DNI or NIE (Spanish ID numbers) with the wrong check letter: that row does not come in until you correct it.
• DNI that already exists in your clinic: a second record is not created. The row is linked to the record that already exists and only its gaps are filled in.
• Same telephone or email as another patient: it is created anyway, because it may be a relative who shares the telephone.
• Email that is not in email format: the patient comes in with an empty email and a warning.

If your previous software has patients registered twice, merge them in the sheet before uploading it. The software recognises the same person by their code, record number or DNI: two rows for the same person with different codes and no DNI would end up as two records.

The preview: what to check before clicking “Importar” (Import)

The preview tells you what will happen to each row before anything goes in. In Mi Clínica, import is under “Configuración” (Settings), in “Importar datos” (Import data), and by default “Dirección” (Management) and “Administración” (Administration) can do it. You choose whether to import patients or appointments, upload the file and the screen shows how many rows it has read, how many come in as new, how many are linked to records that already existed, how many do not come in, and the first errors and warnings, each with its row number.

Nothing is saved until you click “Importar”. If an essential column is missing, the screen says so and does not let you continue. And the preview does not wait indefinitely: if you do not run it within 24 hours, it expires and you have to upload the file again.

When you click “Importar”, all the valid rows go in as a single operation, so a failure halfway does not leave the import half done; rows with errors are left out. A good habit is to do a trial first with twenty or thirty rows, check by hand how those records have turned out and, if something does not add up, undo and correct the sheet.

Then, the appointments

Appointments are imported in a second file and always after the patients, because each appointment has to be able to find its patient. For that, each appointment row needs the patient's code, record number or DNI; if it does not have one or the patient is not there, that appointment does not come in.

• Start date and time, in one column or in two. Without them, the row does not come in.
• Duration or end time. If there is neither, the appointment comes in at 30 minutes with a warning.
• Status. It recognises the usual words, such as “pendiente” (pending), “confirmada” (confirmed), “realizada” (done), “anulada” (cancelled) or “no acudió” (did not attend). If the column is empty, it infers it from the date: past ones come in as “finalizada” (finished) and future ones as “planificada” (planned). A status it does not recognise leaves the row out: change it in the sheet to one it recognises.
• Professional, room and treatment. They are matched by name with those you have already set up. If a name does not match, the appointment comes in without that data and the name from the previous software is kept in its notes; and if a name could belong to two people, it picks neither.

That is why it pays to set up your team and rooms first, with the same names you used in the previous software. How to organise them in the diary is covered in scheduling for a clinic with several practitioners.

Re-importing, undoing and what is not imported

An import is not a one-way step. If you upload the same file again, nothing is duplicated: whatever changed in your previous software is brought up to date, and if someone has already touched a record here, only the gaps are filled in and what your team wrote is never overwritten.

Each import is kept in a list, “Importaciones hechas” (Imports done), with its “Deshacer” (Undo) button. When you undo, the patients who came in are made inactive and the appointments are cancelled. Nothing is deleted, and anything touched afterwards is not undone: a patient with appointments already created in Mi Clínica or with invoices stays active.

Records that arrive by import carry the “Importado” (Imported) label. The allergies in the file go into the general history and the alert in the record header, and a minor who arrives without a guardian comes in with the minor alert so that you can complete it at reception; what to check at that point is covered in registering a new patient. The preference to receive commercial communications is never inferred from the export: it comes in switched off.

Today Mi Clínica imports patients and appointments. The medical records, documents and invoices from the previous software are not imported. What to do with that part, how to request the export from the supplier and how to choose the cut-off date is explained in switching clinic management software. The rest of the features are on the Mi Clínica page (in Spanish).

Sources consulted

Checked on 11 October 2026. We link to the original source so that you can consult the current text.

• Reglamento (UE) 2016/679, Reglamento general de protección de datos. BOE (DOUE).