Sponsor Portal User Guide for Cisco Identity Services Engine

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Import guest accounts

Updated: May 6, 2026

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Overview

Provides instructions on how to efficiently create large numbers of guest accounts by importing data from an external file using a Cisco-supplied template.

If your company maintains account information for authorized visitors in an external database or file, you can create guest accounts for these users by importing their information into the Sponsor portal. The file containing the account information must be a .csv file. The Sponsor portal parses the .csv file and creates new guest user accounts for each entry.

Before you begin

  • Make sure that you have the necessary permissions to import guest account information.

  • You can import usernames and passwords into the system. The CSV template you download does not include these fields. You must add the required headings manually and assign the correct column names so that Cisco ISE recognizes the content.

You can import username and password; however, those rows are not included in the CSV template when you download it. Add those headings manually and name the columns correctly to ensure Cisco ISE recognizes the content:

  • Username: This can be either User Name or UserName.

  • Password: This must be a password.

Procedure

1.

Click Import on the Create Accounts page.

Your system administrator configures which fields display on this page and are required for creating guest accounts. Some fields are mandatory (marked with *) and display with default information that you can change.

2.

Retain or update the Guest Type you want to assign to the guest.

Your system administrator defines the various types of guests and their access privileges.

The maximum number of devices that guests can simultaneously connect to the network and the maximum duration time for network access are displayed for the guest type you select.

3.

Click Download Template to get a template to use for the import file. Before you import the file, ensure it conforms to the required structure.

In the template file, update the Mobile number column format to ensure that the plus sign (+) is retained. Ensure that the required format is applied, even if you edit the template at a later time. Then, complete these steps.

  1. In the downloaded template file, select the Mobile number column.

  2. Right-click anywhere in the selected column.

  3. Choose Format Cells.

  4. From the Number tab, choose Custom.

  5. In the Type text box, delete General and enter +0.

  6. Click OK.
4.

Click Browse to locate and select the .csv file that contains the guest information required to create the guest accounts.

Note
If the .csv file includes non-English characters, then enable UTF-8 character encoding, before importing the file. If UTF-8 character encoding is not enabled, the non-English characters are not parsed properly.
5.

Retain or update the defaults for the mandatory settings and enter information in the other fields, as desired.

The system administrator can configure multiple selections for Language, Location, and SSID. However, if only one selection is specified, it does not display, but is automatically assigned when you create the guest accounts. You can view this selection in the guest account details after the accounts are created.
Note
When setting time durations for accounts, the start and end times you define are applicable in the time zone for the location you pick.
6.

Click Import to import the account information from the external database or file.

A message informs you that the accounts are being created in the background and to check the Notices page for a status on the operation.

What to do next

You can email or print the account details for guests, if these facilities are available to you. You can also text the account details to guests, if your system administrator has enabled this functionality.

On the Notices page, open the specific notice to view account details for up to 50 accounts. If you imported more than 50 accounts, go to the Manage Accounts page, to view all the accounts created.