Start with a clean cryovial inventory template.

Before importing

Four fields are required. Everything else is optional.

Every vial row needs Cell type, Cane, Box, and Position. Optional cells may be empty, and optional columns may be removed entirely. You do not need to invent missing dates, barcodes, passage numbers, or other metadata.

1. If you use the Excel download, read the Instructions sheet, fill the Import template sheet, and save only that sheet as CSV UTF-8 (comma delimited). CryoIndex imports CSV, not the Excel workbook itself.
2. Keep the header row. Add one row for each vial currently in storage.
3. Replace or delete the instructional row. If it remains, CryoIndex identifies it as an example and refuses to import it as stock.
4. Tank is optional for the one-dewar CryoIndex 1.0 inventory. It may be omitted when preparing a new import.
5. Preserve leading zeros in barcodes and physical labels. The Excel templates format identifier examples as text.
6. Parent barcode is optional and must use that exact heading. It links a daughter only when exactly one non-struck CryoIndex record has ever worn the label. A missing, reused, self-referencing, cyclic, or biologically impossible relationship is stored as Not recorded and disclosed after import.
7. The Parent barcode column expresses same-line banking only. Record differentiation, transduction, immortalisation, or subcloning from inside CryoIndex after import.
8. The full template includes four optional placeholders named Custom field 1 through Custom field 4. Remove unused custom columns. Rename only the headings you need—for example, Project, Clone, Treatment, or Protocol—and create matching custom fields under Settings → Vial fields before importing. CryoIndex matches these lab-defined columns by their exact names. Parent barcode is reserved and cannot be used as a custom-field name.
9. Review CryoIndex's proposed mapping, ignored columns, and skipped rows before confirming the import.

The downloads use the current importer's exact headings. Parent barcode was appended rather than slotted beside Barcode so that a lab still filling in last year's template finds every column it already knows in the same place. The instructional row carries its deletion marker in Cell type, a required column, so the marker survives even if every optional column is removed — and CryoIndex refuses that row on sight.