Bulk upload with a spreadsheet

Bulk upload creates many releases at once from a spreadsheet. It’s the fastest way to bring over a back catalog or a batch of new releases. Each release becomes a draft on the artist or label you choose, with its artwork and audio fetched from your share links. You then check each draft and submit it.

Bulk upload is for partners and direct labels. Under a direct label, teammates with the Releases and artists task can use it too.

1. Download the template

1. Open Import → Bulk upload (for direct labels it sits in the Catalog menu).
2. Choose Download template.

The template has a Releases sheet to fill in, and a Lists sheet with the values some columns accept, such as genres. Columns marked with an asterisk (*) are required.

2. Fill it in

Write one row per track. Rows with the same Release # form one release; the release’s fields are read from its first row.

Release columns:

• Release #, Release title, Release version, Release type (single, ep or album)
• Primary artists and Featured artists, separated by commas (at most 5 artists)
• Label, Genre (from the Lists sheet)
• Release date (YYYY-MM-DD, today or later) and Original release date for catalog released before
• UPC for catalog released before; leave it blank and HILLS Music assigns one
• (C) Line, (C) Year, (P) Line, (P) Year (the holder’s name only, no year or symbol in the line)
• Territories: WW for worldwide, or country codes like US,GB,VN
• Cover link

Track columns:

• Disc #, Track #, Track title, Track version, ISRC
• Explicit (clean, explicit or not_explicit), Instrumental (yes or no), Language, Track genre, Track artists
• Composers (required), Lyricists (required unless instrumental), Producers, all as full legal names
• Lyrics, Preview start (mm:ss)
• Audio link

A single has at most 3 tracks and an EP at most 6. Names of artists or labels the account doesn’t have yet are added to it.

3. Share links for the files

The Cover link and Audio link columns take share links (view access) from Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive or WeTransfer. Link to the file itself, not a folder.

• Cover: square JPEG or PNG, 3000 × 3000 px or more.
• Audio: WAV or FLAC, 44.1–192 kHz, 16 or 24-bit.

4. Check and upload

1. Partners: under Artist or label, choose who the releases belong to.
2. Under Upload a spreadsheet, pick your filled-in template and choose Check file.
3. If something’s wrong, a table lists each problem by Row, Column and Problem. Fix them in the spreadsheet and upload it again. Nothing is imported until every row passes.
4. When it says Every row passes, review the list of releases and import it.

The upload is queued and the drafts appear as they’re created; the page updates by itself. If some file links can’t be fetched, those releases are left out and listed: fix the links and upload just those rows again.

5. Submit the drafts

Open each draft from All releases, check it, and submit it for review. The usual checklist applies.

Partners delivering from their own systems can use DDEX instead: see Deliver by DDEX.