diff --git a/app/api/tests/upload/test_utils.py b/app/api/tests/upload/test_utils.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..b8a02fee
--- /dev/null
+++ b/app/api/tests/upload/test_utils.py
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+import unittest
+
+from ...views.upload.utils import append_field
+
+
+class TestDatasetUtils(unittest.TestCase):
+
+    def test_can_append_field(self):
+        data = [
+            {'label': 'A'},
+            {'label': 'B'}
+        ]
+        append_field(data, project=1)
+        expected = [
+            {'label': 'A', 'project': 1},
+            {'label': 'B', 'project': 1}
+        ]
+        self.assertEqual(data, expected)
+
+    def test_can_append_field_to_nested_list(self):
+        annotation = [
+            [{'label': '18'}],
+            [{'label': '7'}, {'label': '4'}]
+        ]
+        docs = list(range(len(annotation)))
+        for a, d in zip(annotation, docs):
+            append_field(a, document=d)
+        expected = [
+            [{'label': '18', 'document': 0}],
+            [{'label': '7', 'document': 1}, {'label': '4', 'document': 1}]
+        ]
+        self.assertEqual(annotation, expected)
diff --git a/app/api/views/upload/utils.py b/app/api/views/upload/utils.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..da53389d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/app/api/views/upload/utils.py
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+from typing import Dict, List
+
+
+def append_field(data: List[Dict], **kwargs):
+    [d.update(kwargs) for d in data]
+    return data