The Scenario
You are an operations lead at a staffing firm. Twenty-five contractors start next week. HR sent you an Excel workbook on SharePoint: first name, last name, email, role, department, and the resource group they should be assigned to in Hub Planner.
Every one of them needs a Hub Planner resource record and a group assignment before Monday so managers can start booking them.
The bad version of Friday afternoon:
- Download the workbook from SharePoint, open it on your desktop
- Open Hub Planner, go to Resources, click "Add Resource"
- Type the first name, last name, email, and role from the workbook
- Find the right resource group and assign
- Click save, go back, repeat
- Make a typo on person 8, not catch it until a manager tries to book them
- You finish person 19 at 5:45 PM. Six contractors start Monday with no Hub Planner record.
The fast version is one prompt.
The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI
SheetXAI is an AI agent inside your Excel workbook that reads the roster and creates the Hub Planner resource records, including group assignments, without requiring you to open Hub Planner once.
Open the SheetXAI sidebar and type:
Create a Hub Planner resource for every row in this workbook using first name from column A, last name from column B, email from column C, and role from column D. Then add each resource to the resource group ID in column E. Write the new resource ID to column F and any error messages to column G.
SheetXAI reads all 25 rows, creates each resource, assigns each one to the correct group, and writes the results back to the workbook. You end the session with a complete record of who was created and what failed.
What You Get
25 Hub Planner resource records, all group-assigned, with results written back to the workbook:
- Column F — the new Hub Planner resource ID for every successful row
- Column G — error message for any row that did not go through
- Zero manual navigation — you did not open Hub Planner's resource creation form once
The IDs in column F matter for what comes next. When you create bookings or assign work to these contractors, you already have their resource IDs in the workbook, ready for the next prompt.
What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready
HR onboarding workbooks on SharePoint are collected from multiple contributors and are rarely ready for a direct API call. SheetXAI handles the gaps inline.
When role names use HR terminology that does not match Hub Planner's role list
HR uses "Senior Consultant" but Hub Planner has "Sr. Consultant."
Before creating resources, normalize role values in column D: "Senior Consultant" → "Sr. Consultant," "Project Lead" → "Project Manager," "Analyst" → "Business Analyst." Then create one resource per row and write the resource ID to column F.
When some contractors should go into multiple resource groups
A few contractors have two departments in column E, separated by a comma.
For rows where column E contains a comma, split the value into two group IDs and add the resource to both groups. For rows with a single group ID, add to just that one. Write the resource ID to column F and the groups assigned to column G.
When email addresses have trailing spaces or inconsistent casing
The workbook was filled out by hand across several contributors.
Trim whitespace and lowercase all values in column C before creating the resources. Then create one Hub Planner resource per row and write the resource ID to column F.
When the workbook mixes full-time staff and contractors who need different settings
Column H says "FTE" or "Contractor."
For rows where column H is "Contractor," create the Hub Planner resource with the contractor flag enabled. For rows where column H is "FTE," create the resource as a standard employee. Assign all resources to the group in column E and write the resource ID to column F.
The pattern: describe the cleanup and the creation together. SheetXAI normalizes the data before it calls the API so the records land clean.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and open your next HR onboarding workbook, then ask SheetXAI to create the Hub Planner resources from it. The Hub Planner integration is included in every SheetXAI plan. For the next step in the workflow, see how to bulk-create projects and assign resources or the Hub Planner in Excel overview.