I usually go about it the same way - download the contents of /rpm/item_d or inm_initiative and fill in the 'empty' cells with that information. Dashboards won't help you much since you need to enter technical values, not their descriptions/names (e.g. 0001 for Importance, not 'High').
You could also try tweaking the field list used for mass import, but I've never done that so can't tell if it's a good way to do it.