Import questions from a spreadsheet
Bring questions into Shiken from a CSV or TSV file, review them, and add them to a question set.
- Go to Content and open the Questions tab (
/org/{slug}/admin/content?tab=questions). - Press Import.
- Drop your CSV or TSV file on the window, or paste the rows and press Parse questions.
- Check each question in the review. Rows with problems are skipped.
- In Add to, choose a question set, or Question bank only.
- Press the Import button at the bottom. It shows how many questions are ready.
You need to be an admin of your organisation.
Excel files are not accepted directly. In Excel, save the sheet as CSV first.
Put a header row at the top, like this: Question, Type, Option A, Option B, Option C, Option D, Correct, Explanation, Difficulty. Shiken matches common column names, so most other exports work without changes.
In Correct, use the option letter or the full option text. For more than one correct answer, separate them with semicolons. A question needs at least two options and one correct answer, unless it is a type with no options.
Options are shuffled by default, so answers are not all in the first position. Tick Keep original option order in the review to stop this. Ranking, matching, EMQ and true/false questions always keep their order.
Add to lists question sets only. You cannot import straight into a poll or a course from here.
Import runs from the Questions tab, not from inside a question set editor. Create the question set first if you want to import into a new one.
The same window also reads Word, PDF, text files, images of questions and SCORM packages.
Last checked against the product on 2026-11-04.