PulseExporting notes in bulk
How to export past notes and transcripts to CSV. Also usable for disclosure requests and data portability.
The notes and transcripts you have accumulated in Pulse can be exported together as a CSV file. As well as backup and migration to another tool, it can be used directly to answer a disclosure request under the Act on the Protection of Personal Information.
Export is run from the settings screen of the desktop app (macOS / Windows). Only notes you own can be exported; notes owned by other members, and notes merely shared with you, are not included. On the Enterprise plan, an administrator may have disabled export.
Running an export
Open settings
Click your avatar at the bottom left to open settings.
Open your profile
Open Profile under Preferences in the sidebar.
Choose the workspaces
Tick the workspaces you want to export. If you belong to several, you can select only the ones you need.
Generate the CSV
Generate CSV. Generation can take several hours.
When generation finishes, a download link is emailed to the address registered on your account. The file is not produced directly in the app, so wait a while and then check your email.
- Generate CSV showed an acknowledgement on screen after you clicked it
- the email address registered on your account is one you can currently receive mail at
- once the email arrives, you download within the link's 24-hour validity
What the CSV contains
Each note is one row, with basic fields such as the title, the AI-enhanced summary, the transcript and the date and time. It covers only the notes you own in the selected workspaces.
On screen, the free plan does not list notes older than 30 days, but the export includes your full history, including those not shown. The differences in what each plan displays are covered in Plans and billing.
Some things are not included. Notes with no summary generated, and deleted notes, are out of scope. The number of rows exported can therefore be lower than the number shown in the app. If the counts do not match, check these two things first.
The exported CSV is UTF-8. Double-clicking a CSV to open it in Excel on Windows can, in some environments, read it as Shift_JIS, turning Japanese text into unreadable symbols. Open it in one of these ways instead.
- In Excel's “Data” tab choose “From Text/CSV”, select the file, and set the file origin to “65001: Unicode (UTF-8)” before loading
- Import it into Google Sheets to check the contents, and if necessary download it again from there in Excel format
- Open the CSV in a text editor and save it again as UTF-8 with BOM before opening it in Excel. In Windows Notepad, choose “UTF-8 with BOM” in the encoding field of “Save As”
Transcript cells contain line breaks and quotation marks. If you process the file with something other than a spreadsheet, use a CSV parser that handles fields containing line breaks.
Download links and reissuing
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Link validity | The link in the email expires after 24 hours. It cannot be opened after that |
| Signed-in state | Open it in a browser signed in to the account that requested the export. If you are signed in as another account, or not signed in, the download does not happen |
| How often it can be reissued | You can request regeneration at any time, but only once every 24 hours per account |
If the link has expired, or you need a file with newer content, generate again from the profile screen in settings using the same steps. If 24 hours have not passed since the previous generation, you cannot create a new export until they have.
Plan and administrator restrictions
On plans other than Enterprise, export is enabled by default. On the Enterprise plan it is disabled by default, and only an Enterprise workspace administrator can use the workspace setting Allow exporting data to enable or disable it for members.
If you cannot find “Generate CSV” in settings, an administrator may have disabled this toggle. Check with your workspace administrator.
Can an administrator export everyone's data?
No. There is no bulk export covering a whole workspace, and no export on someone's behalf using administrator rights. An export always contains only the notes owned by the person who ran it.
What happens when someone leaves depends on where their notes are. Notes they added to a folder in a team space remain accessible from that folder after they leave. Personal notes they never shared are accessible to neither administrators nor other members. Where you need them to export or share something, one approach is to re-invite them to the workspace temporarily so they can do it. The steps are in Workspaces.
Where notes should be kept ahead of someone leaving or moving teams is also a question of folder design. When to review it, and the specific steps, are under “Reviewing permissions” in Spaces and folders.
Using it to answer a disclosure request
An individual may request a business handling personal information to disclose the retained personal data by which they are identified. It provides that the individual may specify the method, including provision by electromagnetic record and other methods prescribed by Personal Information Protection Commission rules (Article 30 of the Enforcement Regulations). The Guidelines on the Act (General Rules) give attaching to email and download from a members' site as examples of provision by electromagnetic record, and state that provision in a readable and searchable format is desirable, as is provision in a format portable to other businesses where technically possible.
CSV export is designed as a means of that provision by electromagnetic record. Because the format opens in a spreadsheet and can be imported into other services, requesting disclosure of your own notes and transcripts through this feature is the surest and quickest route.
The scope of what an export can retrieve is limited, however. Notes with no summary generated, deleted notes, and notes owned by other members are not included. Items other than notes, such as account information and settings, are also out of scope. To request disclosure of those, contact privacy@the-unchain.com. We may ask for documentation confirming your identity. Requests may also be made by an agent.
How fees are handled where we charge for a disclosure request is set out in the Privacy policy. No fee is charged for requests to correct or stop using data.
On business plans, UNCHAIN, Inc. provides Pulse as a party to whom the contracting company has delegated the handling of personal data. Where an employee requests disclosure of their own personal data, they should as a rule apply to their employer. Where UNCHAIN, Inc. receives a request directly, we handle it through the contracting company.
If something is not working
- The email does not arrive: generation takes several hours. Check your spam folder, and if it still has not arrived, check that the email address registered on your account is one you can currently use. How to change it is in Changing your account and email address.
- The link gives an error: either more than 24 hours have passed since it was issued, or you are opening it in a browser signed in as a different account. Sign in again as the account that requested the export.
- I cannot generate again: 24 hours have not passed since the previous generation. Try again later.
- “Generate CSV” is not shown: on the Enterprise plan, an administrator may have disabled export.
- The count does not match what the app shows: notes with no summary and deleted notes are not included.
- It opens with unreadable Japanese: follow “Avoiding garbled characters when opening the CSV in Excel” in this article and load it with the encoding specified.
If that does not resolve it, contact tharada@the-unchain.com with the date and time you requested the export and your account's email address.