CSV format reference

The same CSV format is used by import, export, and templates. This page is the complete rulebook.

Columns

The first row must be a header. Columns may appear in any order; names are matched case-insensitively, ignoring spaces, underscores, and dashes (Sub Expected, sub_expected, and SUB-EXPECTED are all the same column). Unknown columns are ignored.

Column	Required	Value
title	yes	Item title (non-empty on every row)
min	no	Minutes — minimum time
expected	yes	Minutes — planned time (every row)
max	no	Minutes — maximum time
person	no	Participant name; created on the agenda and assigned to this item
sub label	no	What one sub-slot is called (e.g. Speaker); defaults to “Sub-item”
sub min	no	Minutes — per-slot minimum
sub expected	no*	Minutes — per-slot planned time; setting it is what activates the sub-item loop
sub max	no	Minutes — per-slot maximum

* required only if any other sub * value is present on that row — a sub-item without sub expected is an error.

Values

• Times are minutes from 0.5 to 600, in half-minute steps: 3, 7.5, 90 — not 2.25.
• Ordering is enforced where set: min ≤ expected ≤ max (same for the sub trio).
• person: the same name on multiple rows becomes a single participant.

Parsing

• Delimiter is auto-detected per file: tab, semicolon, or comma — so a direct paste from Excel or Google Sheets (tab-separated) works unchanged.
• Quoting: fields may be wrapped in double quotes; a quoted field can contain the delimiter and newlines-free text; "" inside a quoted field is a literal quote.
• Blank lines are skipped.

Errors

Validation is all-or-nothing: if any row fails, nothing is imported, and every problem is listed with its line number and field, e.g.:

Line 4: sub expected — Set an expected time for the sub-item
Line 7: expected — Use whole or half minutes (e.g. 10 or 10.5)

What round-trips

Export produces this exact format, so export → import reproduces an agenda’s items, times, sub-item loops, and participants. Not included in the format (set manually after import):

• item URLs (QR codes),
• the agenda description,
• the scheduled start and timezone.

The Toastmasters template

The complete example agenda — shipped in the repository at doc/toastmasters-agenda-template.csv and installed as a template by the sample-data seed:

title,min,expected,max,person,sub label,sub min,sub expected,sub max
Opening and welcoming guests,2,3,5,President,,,,
Introduction by the Toastmaster of the Evening,2,3,4,Toastmaster,,,,
Helpers introductions: timer / grammarian / ah-counter,3,4,5,,Helper,1,1.5,2
Word of the day,1,2,3,Grammarian,,,,
Prepared speeches,2,3,4,Toastmaster,Speaker,5,6,7
Break,10,10,15,,,,,
Table Topics — impromptu speaking,3,5,7,Table Topics Master,Participant,1,1.5,2
Speech evaluations,1,2,3,General Evaluator,Evaluator,2,2.5,3
Table Topics evaluation,3,4,5,,,,,
Helpers reports,3,5,6,,Helper,1,1.5,2
General Evaluator report,3,5,7,General Evaluator,,,,
Awards and closing,3,5,10,President,,,,