Importing your artworks from Excel or CSV into Viewroom

Your inventory already exists. It lives in an Excel workbook, a Google Sheets file exported as CSV, or a file handed over by a gallery. This guide describes the import as it works in Viewroom today, screen by screen, with the labels you will see.

Preparing your file

One row per work, one column per piece of information. That is the only rule that really matters. A header row helps without being required: with no header, columns are recognised from their values, and the review tells you so.

The columns the import recognises:

Other columns are left aside: weight, insurance value, purchase cost, net price, packaging size, contact details, internal calculations. You do not need to remove them.

A few points that save a correction later:

• Units. Without a unit, dimensions are read in centimetres. Millimetres and inches are converted, whether the unit is in the cell (“16 in”) or in the header.
• Currency. Prices are read in euros, and a price with no currency symbol counts as euros. A price marked in another currency, US dollars included, is not converted: the work comes in as “Price on request”, flagged in the review, and the original amount is kept in its private notes.
• Images. An image must sit on its work’s row. Accepted formats: JPEG, PNG, WebP and GIF. Some images placed inside cells cannot be imported; the review says so.
• One work per row, not per column. A sheet that lists one work per column is not supported. It shows up under “Sheets not imported”.
• Several sheets. A workbook can have up to ten. Each sheet is examined; those that are not lists of works are flagged, not imported.
• CSV. Comma, semicolon or tab, in UTF-8 or in the Windows encoding of older Excel exports.

The limits of one file: 60 MiB, 10 sheets, 2,000 rows per sheet and 5,000 in total, 100 columns per sheet, 500 images, 20 MiB per image and 55 MiB of images in total.

Step 1: upload the file

In your inventory, choose “Import from Excel”. The page is called “Import an inventory”. At step “1. Upload the file”, drop your workbook in the area provided or click to choose it, then start “Analyse file”.

The file goes straight to private storage, before any analysis. If an import is already running, the screen offers “Resume current import” rather than starting a second one.

Step 2: the analysis

The “2. Analyse the inventory” screen follows the progress: file received, analysing the workbook, preparing works, processing images. If you leave the page, you find your import again by coming back to “Import from Excel” from the same browser.

If the analysis service does not respond, the screen shows “Service unavailable” and a single button, “Try again”. It runs the analysis again without you uploading the file a second time, and that attempt does not count towards your imports for the month.

Step 3: the review, row by row

“3. Review works” is the step that matters. Nothing has been created yet. Rows are sorted into four tabs:

• Ready: complete works, set to “Create”.
• Needs correction: something is blocking, such as a missing title or unreadable dimensions. You fix it under “Edit information”.
• Duplicates: a similar work already exists in your inventory, or elsewhere in the file. These rows are unticked by default.
• Ignored: rows that look like a header, a total or a legend, or that seem inactive or archived.

Each row shows where it comes from: the sheet name and the row number. Every value proposed is taken from a cell of your file, never made up. When a value is uncertain, a “To check” note appears next to the field, and the list “Points to check on this row” says why: an uncertain unit, an ambiguous status, a column recognised without confirmation.

For each row you choose “Create” or “Ignore”. Editing a row sets it back to “Ignore”, so you approve it again knowing what changed.

Duplicates. For each duplicate, the review shows the matched work and the reason: “Same image”, “Same inventory number”, or “Very close title, year and dimensions”. If the work is already in your inventory, the link “Open the work in a new tab” lets you compare. If you already imported this file once, this is where you see it.

Doubtful rows are never lost. A row set aside by a narrow margin stays in “Ignored”, unticked, with this message: “This row was set aside by a narrow margin: it may be a work. To import it, choose “Create”.” The “Sheets not imported” block also lists every sheet left aside, with its reason: not a list of works, no work rows found, or one work per column.

Step 4: confirm

When the review suits you, choose “Continue with N works”. The “4. Confirm import” screen sums up what will be created, corrected, flagged as a duplicate or ignored. The “Confirm import” button creates the works.

At creation time, Viewroom reads every value again in place in the stored workbook. If a single one cannot be found there, the import is refused and nothing is created.

Step 5: the summary

“5. Import complete” gives the count: total, created, corrected, ignored, duplicates, failed. “Back to inventory” takes you to your works, with their images.

The temporary data of the import is deleted after confirmation or cancellation, and at the latest 24 hours after the file was uploaded.

What reads your file

The artwork import uses no LLM. The principle fits in one sentence: “TypeSafe (Jev) judges, the code decides, without an LLM.”

TypeSafe is an outside service, based in the United States. Viewroom sends it the useful content of the cells and asks it questions written in advance: which column holds the title, is this row a work, does this status mean “sold”. TypeSafe answers with probabilities and choices. Viewroom’s rules decide, and every value kept remains a cell of your file, which you can find again by its sheet and row.

What our privacy policy says: TypeSafe keeps nothing, neither what it receives nor what it sends back, and does not use it to train its models. The images of your works are sent to no model. If TypeSafe does not respond, the import stops and nothing is sent anywhere else.

How many imports a month

You can run ten imports a month. Once the limit is reached, the screen shows “Monthly limit reached” and tells you whom to write to for another one. An import stopped by an outage of the analysis service does not count.

Your imported inventory then becomes the base for everything else: the catalogue, the PDF portfolio, the press kit and the certificate of authenticity come out of the same records.