We've recently updated ORCID'S Privacy Policy to be simple to understand and easy to navigate. We invite you to read it here.

Connecting research and researchers

You are here: Home / Documentation / Member Portal / Affiliation Manager Guide

Affiliation Manager Guide

This guide is for staff at organizations who are using the ORCID Member Portal to add information to the ORCID records of researchers affiliated with their organization. Affiliation Manager can be used to add Employment, Education, Qualifications or professional activities (Membership, Service, Invited positions and Distinctions) Affiliation Manager is available to consortium members only.

ORCID staff have to enable access to the tool so please request access here.

Add affiliations to the portal

Adding affiliations via CSV and manually video tutorial

Bulk upload CSV

  1. Create a CSV file with the following fields for each affiliation you wish to add to ORCID. Field names must be included as headers. See here for example file.
    • Before uploading your CSV file, please check that:
      • The columns within your file are separated by commas and not semicolons or tabs.
      • No incremental changes have been made on the rows, particularly in the organization ID column.
      • Your file was saved using UTF-8 encoding, particularly if you use non-English characters (such as tildes, cedillas, acutes or diaeresis).
      • Your file follows the validation rules in the following table
Column nameDescriptionValidation Rules
emailEmail address of the researcher this affiliation belongs toRequired. Must be a valid email address
Ex: [email protected]
affiliation-sectionORCID record section that this affiliation should be added toRequired. Must be one of the following values:
– employment
– education
– qualification
– invited-position
– distinction
– service
department-nameName of the departmentOptional. 4000 characters maximum.
Examples:
Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Journal of International Management
role-titleRole/title/degreeOptional. 4000 characters maximum.
Ex: Associate Professor, Member, Master’s degree
start-dateStart date of the affiliationOptional. ISO 8601 date, with at least a year specified, and at most day of month. Examples:
– 2019
– 2019-02
– 2019-02-20
end-dateEnd date of the affiliationOptional. ISO 8601 date, with at least a year specified, and at most day of month. Examples:
– 2019
– 2019-02
– 2019-02-20
org-nameName of your organizationRequired, 4000 characters
org-countryCountry that your organization is located inRequired, 2 character iso-3166-country code
Example: US, DE, MX
org-cityCity that your organization is located inRequired, 4000 characters
org-regionRegion that your organization is located inOptional, 4000 characters
disambiguated-
organization-
identifier		Persistent identifier for your organization, from one of the supported sources ROR or Ringgold.Required 
ROR Example: ror.org/04fa4r544
disambiguation-
source		Source of the identifier used in the disambiguated-
organization-
Identifier field		Required. Must be one of the following values:
ROR (preferred option)
Ringgold
urlURL for a resource about the affiliation, such as this researcher’s contact page in your organization’s directoryOptional, Example: https://info.orcid.org/orcid-team/
  1. Click Tools > Affiliation Manager (or visit https://member-portal.orcid.org/assertion)
  2. Click Import affiliations from CSV, choose the CSV you created in step 1 and click Upload. The file has been uploaded for processing.
  3. You will receive an email once the file has been processed. The email message will advise how many affiliations have been added as per the upload. A check is completed for duplicate affiliations (exact match). The number of duplicates will also be shown if any were included within the file. You will also receive an email if for any reason there was an error processing the file
  4. The affiliations you uploaded will appear in the list on https://member-portal.orcid.org/assertion

Add affiliations manually

  1. Click Tools > Affiliation Manager (or visit https://member-portal.orcid.org/assertion)
  2. Click Add affiliation, enter the affiliation data and click Save
  1. A check is completed to ensure that a duplicate does not exist.
  2. The affiliation will appear in the list on https://member-portal.orcid.org/assertion

In order to add data to ORCID records, record owners first need to grant permission to your organization by clicking a personalized link. To facilitate this, the member portal provides personalized permission links that correspond to the affiliation items you’ve added to the portal. 

There are 2 ways that you can send permission links to your researchers. Both ways are detailed below:

Using this feature, ORCID can send permission links to your researchers by adding an ORCID inbox notification if an ORCID iD exists or via email. The e-mail text is standard and can’t be modified by the member organization.  The process triggers a notification immediately then 7 and 30 days after if the user has yet to grant permission. Please see Granting permissions (Researchers view) to understand the user experience for your researchers.

  1. Click Tools > Affiliation Manager (or visit https://member-portal.orcid.org/assertion)
  2. Click Send Permission notifications. This will change the status of all the affiliations within the portal from ‘Pending’ to ‘Notification requested’
  3. Once the process has been completed the status will change to ‘Notification sent’. Affiliations with this status signal that either an inbox notification has been generated or an email has been sent. We will advise you via email how many notifications have been sent. 

After a user clicks the link within the inbox notification or the email to grant permission, all affiliation items associated with that user will be added to their ORCID record and the status of those affiliation items in https://member-portal.orcid.org/assertion will appear as “In ORCID”. The user’s ORCID iD will appear next to their name and the “Modified” date will be updated to reflect the date/time that time was added to the user’s ORCID record.

You can download a CSV file of the email address and the permission links for the researchers affiliations that have a “pending’ or ‘notification sent’ status in the portal.

  1. Click Tools > Add affiliations (or visit https://member-portal.orcid.org/assertion)
  2. Click Request permission links to generate a CSV file containing the email address and personalized permission link for each unique user you’ve added an affiliation item for (as identified by email address). Note: Links are only generated for affiliations with status “Pending”and “Notification sent”.  Also, if a user has multiple affiliations, only 1 link will be generated.
  3. Send links to users via email (see our email guide for more information) using a mail merge tool to embed the link for each user into an appropriate email template. See Granting permission (researcher view) for the steps that researchers need to complete after receiving the permission link.
  4. After a user (identified by email address) clicks the link to grant permission, all affiliation items associated with that user will be added to their ORCID record and the status of those affiliation items in https://member-portal.orcid.org/assertion will appear as “In ORCID”. The user’s ORCID iD will appear next to their name and the “Modified” date will be updated to reflect the date/time that time was added to the user’s ORCID record.

If a user denies access or an error occurs when attempting to update a user’s ORCID record, the Status column will be updated accordingly. See Affiliation Status for details.

If for any reason you need to resend the authorization link to one user then you can copy the link to your clipboard from within the researchers affiliation following the steps below:

  1. Click Tools > Affiliation Manager (or visit https://member-portal.orcid.org/assertion)
  2. Find the users affiliation within the portal by using the search option under the menu options on the right
  3. Click ‘View details’ 
  4. Click ‘Copy to clipboard’ 

Edit affiliations

Please remember that, as with any other ORCID integration, with the Affiliation Manager, you can only edit affiliations that have been added using the tool. Affiliations added manually by researchers can only be edited by them. Affiliations added by other integrations can only be edited by these other integrations.

You may need to edit an existing affiliation if the affiliation has ended, or if there is a mistake in the data.

Important! If the user has a new affiliation with your organization (such as a position change) do not edit the existing affiliation to reflect the new position. Instead, update the end date of the existing affiliation and add a new affiliation with the new position title.

Edit affiliations manually

  1. Click Member Tools > Affiliation Manager (or visit https://member-portal.orcid.org/assertion)
  2. Click the Edit button beside the relevant affiliation
  3. Edit the data as needed and click Save.
  4. If the affiliation status is “In ORCID”, the affiliation will be updated on the user’s ORCID record within a few minutes. If the status is “Pending” or “Notification sent” the corrected affiliation will be added to the user’s record if/when they grant permission. 

Editing Affiliations via CSV upload

If you have a number of affiliations to update then you can use the CSV upload.

  1. Click Tools > Affiliation Manager (or visit https://member-portal.orcid.org/assertion)
  2. Click ‘Request affiliations for edit’ to generate a CSV file of all your current affiliations within the portal. The file that is produced contains a unique affiliation ID for each entry, please do not edit this ID.
  3. Amend the data for the affiliations that require an edit. This could be correcting inaccurate data or adding end dates.
  4. Click Import affiliations from CSV, choose the CSV you created in step 2 and click Upload (it may take a few moments to process the file)
  5. An email message will advise how many affiliations were updated as part of the file upload once processed
  6. Relevant affiliations will be updated in the portal and in ORCID (if already exist). Please note that those affiliations that remain unedited won’t suffer any change or receive any notification.

Delete affiliations

Deleting affiliations with status “In ORCID”

Deleting an affiliation with status “In ORCID” from the Member Portal will also delete it from the user’s ORCID record. This action should only be taken in rare cases:

CaseShould I delete the affiliation?
There are data errors in an affiliationNO. Edit the existing affiliation to correct the data as described above in Edit affiliations
A user is no longer affiliated with my organizationNO. Edit the existing affiliation to add an end date as described above in Edit affiliations
An affiliation was added to a user’s record in error (ex: the affiliation is for another person)YES
A user did not begin a position as plannedYES

Deleting affiliations with status “Pending”, “Error” or “User denied access”

Affiliations with status “Pending”, “Error” or “User denied access” have not been added to ORCID, therefore deleting them only removes data from the Member Portal and does not affect the user’s record.

  1. Click Tools > Affiliation Manager (or visit https://member-portal.orcid.org/assertion)
  2. Click the Delete button beside the relevant affiliation
  3. Click Delete again when prompted
  4. If the status of the deleted affiliation was “In ORCID”, it may take several minutes for the affiliation to be removed from ORCID.

Delete affiliations via CSV

If you have a number of affiliations that you need to delete then you can use the CSV upload.

  1. Click Member Tools > Affiliation Manager (or visit https://member-portal.orcid.org/assertion)
  2. Click ‘Download affiliations for edit’ to generate a CSV file of all your current affiliations within the portal. The file that is produced contains a unique affiliation ID for each entry, please do not edit this ID.
  3. Remove all the data in columns A-P, which should just leave the unique affiliation ID in column Q
  4. Click Import affiliations from CSV, choose the CSV you created in step 2 and click Upload (it may take a few moments to process the file)
  5. A message will show how many affiliations were deleted as part of the file upload.
  6. All affiliations that were included in the upload that just had the unique affiliation ID included would have been deleted from the portal and the users ORCID record if applicable. 

Affiliation status report

You can request a report including the details and status of affiliation you’ve added to the Member Portal.

  1. Click Tools > Affiliation Manager (or visit https://member-portal.orcid.org/assertion)
  2. Click ‘Request affiliation status report’
  3. A CSV file will be generated and emailed to you. Sample output:

Affiliation Status

StatusDescription
PendingThe user has not taken any action (ie: they have not clicked the permission link)
In ORCIDThe user has granted permission, and the affiliation item has been successfully added to their ORCID record.
Pending retry in ORCIDThe user has granted permission but the affiliation has not yet been added or updated to their ORCID record. This status will be seen for a short while when an error occurred that had been manually fixed.
Pending update in ORCIDThis status will be seen for a short while after the affiliation has been edited pending an update on the users ORCID record.
User denied accessThe user clicked the permission link, but chose not to grant permission to update their ORCID record. The affiliation item was not added to the user’s ORCID record.
Error adding to ORCIDA system error occurred either during the process of granting permission or updating the user’s ORCID record. Raw output of the error message will also be displayed; you can send this to ORCID support for help troubleshooting.
Error updating in ORCIDA system error occurred during the process of updating the affiliation in ORCID. Raw output of the error message will also be displayed; you can send this to ORCID support for help troubleshooting.
Error deleting in ORCIDThere has been an error deleting the affiliation on the users ORCID record. Please contact [email protected] for assistance
User deleted from ORCIDThe user has deleted the affiliation from their record. You cannot perform any edits. If you would like to add the affiliation again a new affiliation will have to be added in the portal
User revoked permissionThe user has removed your organization from their Trusted Organizations lists, therefore you no longer have permission to update their record. You can request permission again by using the copy to clipboard link functionality
Notification RequestedThis is a temporary status for affiliations that have been selected for the notification process
Notification SentThe user has received a notification from ORCID via their ORCID inbox or email address used when uploading the affiliation
Notification FailureThe notification process has failed. Please contact [email protected] for assistance

Granting permission (researcher view)

  1. Click the link/button in the email/notification that you have been sent from your organisation or from ORCID
  2. You will be redirected to the ORCID signin/register screen. 

Note: If you previously granted your institution permission to update your ORCID record, you do not need to take any further action and you will see the following message:

  1. If you have an ORCID account, sign in. If not, click Register now.
    Note: The email address associated with your ORCID account does NOT need to match the address that the email with the permission link was sent to.
  2. After signing into ORCID or creating a new account, you will be presented with a screen prompting you to grant your institution permission to update your ORCID record.
  3. If you would like your institution to update your ORCID record with your affiliation information, click Authorize; if not, click Deny.
  4. If you clicked Authorize, a success message will be displayed:

If you clicked Deny, an error message will be displayed and you will have another opportunity to grant permission:

  1. If you clicked Authorize, your ORCID record will be updated with affiliation information provided by your institution within minutes!

Your institution may choose to update this affiliation or add additional affiliation information to your ORCID record in the future. If you no longer want your institution to have access to update your ORCID record, you can remove access in the Trusted Organizations section of your ORCID Trusted parties page

Trouble Shooting

Upfront validation errors

Before we process your file we complete a basic validation check. If there are any errors then you will receive an email advising which line of the file includes errors. 

Common validations errors are:

  • Missing mandatory fields. The mandatory fields are researcher’s e-mail address, affiliation type, organization’s name, country and city, disambiguated organization identifier (the ROR ID), and disambiguation source (ROR).
  • Invalid affiliation type. The affiliation type comes from ORCID controlled vocabulary (employment, education, qualification, invited-position, distinction, service) and not from your organization’s internal classification. 
  • Invalid date range. Dates must follow the ISO 8601 format, where the year, month and day are separated by hyphens and not by slashes. End dates can be future dates.
  • Invalid country code. Country codes must be the 2-character ISO-3166-country code.
  • Invalid ORG ID included within the file. This could be a mismatch between the disambiguated source and the disambiguated organization identifier value, or an incremental addition to the ORG ID value when processing the fiel.
  • Columns are separated by semicolons and not commas.
  • Problems in reading rows due to row breaks added when processing the file.

We strongly recommend saving files using UTF-8 encoding, particularly if you use non-English characters. Not using UTF-8 encoding won’t generate a validation error, but it will lead to incorrect processing of non-English characters such as tildes, cedillas, acutes or diaeresis.

Error adding to ORCID/Error updating in ORCID

A system error occurred during the process of adding/updating the affiliation in ORCID. Raw output of the error message will be displayed which should provide you with the relevant information needed for you to resolve the issue. If you are having issues you can send a copy of the error message to ORCID support for help troubleshooting.

If you need to correct a vast majority of the affiliations then you can do this via the CSV upload functionality or you can edit individual affiliations as and when needed. Please see the Account Manager Guide for the steps to complete this action

Researcher FAQ

Who should I contact if the affiliation data added to my record is incorrect?

Please contact the designated ORCID support contact at your organization. This should be listed in the permission request email that you received.

I’ve already added my [ORGANIZATION NAME] affiliations to my ORCID record – how should I manage these duplicates?

At this time, it is not possible to merge affiliation items from different sources in your ORCID record. We suggest keeping the item(s) that list your organization in the “Source” field, as these are regarded as more “authoritative” by other systems that use ORCID data for purposes such as pre-populating forms (for example, manuscript submission and grant application forms).