User Manual

The primary purpose of the Header section is to specify configuration before importing. For example, rather than importing a task called, Set up the new employee’s payroll, you could change a value in the header such that you'd import a task called, Set up Joe Smith's payroll, which will make it much easier to identify context later on, especially when handling multiple such tasks at once.

The header section:

•  is located at the top of a template, beginning with the frozen header row (row 1)

• ends with one or more empty rows (the thin darker row by default)

• may contain any number of rows, so long as rows with values are consecutive (remember: a blank row indicates the end of the header section!)

• has no specific format. (In fact, the Importer completely ignores these rows while importing.)

  • This means that there is great flexibility in how you use the space. 

  • But since some convention is helpful, here is a suggested format:

    • Provide a "key" (or "name") for each header row in the first Tasks column.

    • Provide its "value" in the Description column. (One useful exception might be to utilize the dropdown in Assign to.)

    • For values that are calculated automatically and need not be changed (e.g. it uses a TODAY() function), change it to gray.

Task section

The purpose of the Task section is to define tasks that should be imported into Todoist. Each row can have values in the following columns:

• Priority

  • Equivalent to Todoist's Priority value: 1, 2, 3, or 4 (default)

  • This column can also have special values (e.g. creating sections or skipping rows)

• Date

  • Equivalent to Todoist's Date value

  • Can be date values or natural language. If Todoist accepts it as a valid date in its apps, you can use it here.

  • Can include Time and Duration (Todoist premium users only; without a premium/paid plan, durations will be ignored.)

• Deadline

  • Equivalent to Todoist's Deadline value (Todoist premium users only; without a premium/paid plan, using this column will produce error messages.)

  • Note: at present, only date formats are accepted (e.g. 2025-09-30, 9/30/2025, Sept 30 are all okay, but "next monday" is not)

• Assign to

  • See Todoist's documentation on Assigning a task

  • The values of the dropdown are set based on the Importer Config sheet's Users section

  • If blank, the task is unassigned. To assign a person, the selected person must have the project shared with them already (via Todoist's app)

• Tasks

  • First-level tasks should be placed in the leftmost Tasks column. 

    • To create subtasks beneath it, indent the next tasks one more column.

      • To create subtasks beneath that level, indent the next tasks one more column.

        • Don't skip levels "on the way down". However, you can skip levels "going back up". 

          • Todoist supports up to five levels (hence the Importer having five levels)

  • Note that only the leftmost column containing text will be used.

  • Can use markdown formatting

• Description

  • Equivalent to Todoist's Description value

  • Can use markdown formatting

Additional notes:

• The Importer will import whatever text is displayed. That is, it doesn’t matter whether a spreadsheet cell contains a formula or reference or number or date, etc. What you see is what Todoist gets!

• Blank rows are ignored.

• Columns can be rearranged if you'd like, so long as the five columns for Tasks remain together.

• If formatting in a sheet gets "messed up", select Extensions > Sheet Importer for Todoist > Tools > Format selected sheet.

Colors

Don't like the default color scheme for your sheets? No worries! Just set some new colors:

1. Foreground Color 1: #000000 (black) if not otherwise set

2. Background Color 1

3. Background Color 2: calculated from Background Color 1 if not otherwise set

There are several ways to change these values:

• Set sheet-specific configuration (e.g. # Background Color 1); for the current sheet

• Set cell A1's ("Priority") background & foreground colors (this will set Background Color 1 & Foreground Color 1); for the current sheet

• Set Importer Config settings (e.g. Background Color 1); default for all sheets - individual sheets can be overridden using either method above

After setting the values using one of the methods above, select Extensions > Sheet Importer for Todoist > Tools > Format selected sheet.