The Scenario
You are a VP of Operations, three days into a new role. You inherited a SimpleKPI account with no categories. Every KPI is in a flat uncategorized list of 60 items. Team kickoff is Thursday.
Your predecessor left an Excel workbook with the agreed category names: Sales, Support, Finance, Operations, HR, Marketing, Product, and Logistics.
The bad version:
- Open SimpleKPI, navigate to category management
- Click "Add category," type the name, save
- Repeat for 7 more categories
- Realize you misspelled "Operations" and have to edit it
- Thursday arrives and the account is still a flat list because you spent the afternoon on categories.
The fast version is one prompt.
The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI
SheetXAI reads your category workbook and creates every category in SimpleKPI in one pass.
Open the SheetXAI sidebar and type:
Create a SimpleKPI category for each row in the Categories tab of this workbook using the name in column A. Write the new category ID or error into column B.
SheetXAI creates all 8 categories and writes the returned IDs into column B. You now have a name-to-ID map in the workbook — ready for KPI assignments.
What You Get
A complete SimpleKPI category structure:
- 8 categories created — one API call per row
- Column B filled — the SimpleKPI category ID for each created category, or the error
- A reusable ID map — use column B in follow-on KPI assignment prompts without navigating the SimpleKPI UI
What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready
Category workbooks come from org charts and management discussions. They are rarely ready to push directly.
When each category needs a description
Your workbook has descriptions in column B and you want them stored in SimpleKPI too.
Create a SimpleKPI category for each row in the Categories tab using the name in column A and description in column B. Write the new category ID into column C.
When categories have a defined sort order
Your operations team cares about ordering in SimpleKPI's UI. Sort order is in column C.
Create a SimpleKPI category for each row in the Categories tab using the name in column A and set the sort order to the value in column C. Write the returned category ID into column D.
When some categories already exist
The account has a few categories from initial setup. Only create the missing ones.
List all existing SimpleKPI categories. Then for each name in column A of the Categories tab that does NOT already exist, create a new category. Write "Created — ID: [id]" or "Already exists — ID: [id]" into column B.
When you need categories created and KPIs assigned in one pass
Column B has KPI IDs (comma-separated) that should be assigned to each category immediately after creation.
Create a SimpleKPI category for each row in the Categories tab using the name in column A. Write the returned category ID into column C. Then assign each KPI ID listed in column B to the category. Write "Assigned" or errors into column D.
The pattern: build the structure and wire up assignments in the same prompt.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and open your category workbook, then ask it to build the structure in SimpleKPI. The SimpleKPI integration is included in every SheetXAI plan. For related workflows, see how to bulk-create KPIs from a definition workbook or the SimpleKPI in Excel overview.