The Scenario
It is January. Your HRBP just had 25 new requisitions approved in the headcount plan. Each one is in an Excel workbook — job title, department ID, location ID, target start date, and employment type — all signed off. The question is how fast you can get them into Ashby so recruiters can start pipeline work.
You have done this manually before. The memory is not fond.
The bad version:
- Open Ashby, navigate to Jobs, click "Create Job," fill in the title from row 1, select the department from the dropdown (the IDs in the workbook do not match the labels in the dropdown, so you are matching by memory), pick the location, set the employment type, save.
- Go back to the workbook. Look at row 2. Back to Ashby.
- Around req 10, you realize you have been setting one location to "Remote - US" when the headcount plan says "Hybrid - NYC." You fix it and continue.
Twenty-five reqs at five minutes each is over two hours — time that belongs in conversations with candidates.
The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI
SheetXAI is an AI agent that lives inside your Excel workbook. It reads the headcount plan and creates the Ashby openings through a built-in integration — all 25 in one operation.
Read the HeadcountPlan table and create one Ashby opening per row. Columns: Title, DepartmentID, LocationID, TargetStartDate, EmploymentType, IsBackfill. Write the opening ID into 'OpeningID'.
SheetXAI reads each row, calls the Ashby jobs API, and writes the returned opening ID into OpeningID. Rows that error show the reason instead.
What You Get
- OpeningID fills with Ashby opening IDs — one per created req.
- Rows that fail (invalid department ID, missing required field) show the exact error.
- The workbook becomes a record linking each approved req to its Ashby ID.
- Recruiters can start sourcing before you close your laptop.
What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready
Department IDs in DepartmentID are department names, not IDs
For each row in the HeadcountPlan table, look up the Ashby department whose name matches DepartmentID and use its ID to create the opening. Use other columns as specified. Write the opening ID into OpeningID.
Some rows are backfills and need a flag set
Create one Ashby opening per row in the HeadcountPlan table. For rows where IsBackfill is "Yes" or "TRUE", set the isBackfill flag to true. Write the opening ID into OpeningID.
Target start dates are in MM/DD/YYYY format
Before creating openings from the HeadcountPlan table, convert all dates in TargetStartDate from MM/DD/YYYY to ISO 8601 format. Then create one Ashby opening per row using the converted date and write the opening ID into OpeningID.
Validate department and location IDs, then create all openings in one pass
For each row in the HeadcountPlan table, first verify that DepartmentID and LocationID exist in Ashby. If either is invalid, write the error into OpeningID and skip. For valid rows, create the Ashby opening and write the opening ID into OpeningID.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and open your headcount plan Excel workbook, then ask it to push all approved reqs into Ashby in one operation. See also the spoke on bulk assigning hiring team members to jobs, or return to the Ashby overview.