Data import and export

Team Business Enterprise

Under Organization → Data & retention there are two pages for moving data across the edge of your organization's company vaults:

• Data import loads a file into a company vault.
• Data export writes a company vault out to a file.

They use the same import and export forms as members' personal Import & export page. Organization members have no personal Import & export page, so this is where an organization's data leaves, including while the organization is read-only.

Both pages need permission to manage organization settings.

You must be a custodian of the vault#

A company vault is only a name in a list as far as you are concerned until you hold a key to it. Importing encrypts items under the vault's key, and exporting decrypts them with it, and both happen in your browser. PulsVault's servers hold only wrapped copies of that key and cannot open the vault for you. An administrator who is not a custodian has no copy to unwrap, and no permission can change that.

So on both pages the vault picker lists your organization's company vaults (the first 100), but only those you are a custodian of can be chosen. The rest are shown greyed out with Not a custodian — ask one of its custodians, so the list reads as your organization's vaults rather than a quietly shorter one. See custodians.

Your own vault must also be unlocked. If it is not, each page shows Unlock to import or Unlock to export, because the work is done in your browser with your keys.

If the organization has no company vaults yet, the pages say so; create one under Organization → Vault governance → Organization vaults first.

Data import#

Organization → Data & retention → Data import accepts:

File	Notes
JSON	PulsVault's own JSON, plaintext
CSV	Including CSV exports from browsers and other password managers
Encrypted .pulsvault	A PulsVault encrypted export; you are asked for its passphrase

A file can be up to 10 MB and 5,000 items.

1. Unlock your vault and open Data import.
2. Choose a file, or drop it on the panel. Anything that is not JSON, CSV or .pulsvault is refused.
3. Under Target vault, choose the company vault. It defaults to the first one you are a custodian of.
4. Under Duplicates, choose Create duplicates or Skip duplicates.
5. For a .pulsvault file, enter the Decryption passphrase.
6. Check the summary of what was found (logins, credit cards, keys, bank accounts). Fields that do not map to an item type are added to the item's notes.
7. Select Import, then confirm with Yes, import.

When it finishes, Import results shows how many items were processed, Imported and Failed, with a searchable table of each item, its detected type, its status and any error, and an Open vault link.

An import is a write: while your subscription is read-only the page shows a notice instead of the form (Your subscription is read-only, so nothing can be imported). You can still export.

Data export#

Organization → Data & retention → Data export:

Format	Use it for
JSON (plaintext)	Moving data elsewhere
CSV (plaintext, spreadsheets)	Reading in a spreadsheet
PulsVault encrypted (.pulsvault)	A backup file protected by a passphrase you set

1. Unlock your vault and open Data export.
2. Choose an Export format and the Vault.
3. For a plaintext format, tick I understand the risks of a plaintext export. For PulsVault encrypted, set an Encryption passphrase instead.
4. Select Start export. Items are fetched and decrypted in your browser, and the download starts when it completes.

Export is never blocked by a read-only subscription. That is the point: the window in which an organization can no longer write is exactly when it needs its data out.

Everything is audited#

Every import and every export is recorded in the audit log. Because the servers never see the contents, the record says that it happened and who did it, not what was in the file.