Whether you want to carry out an initial import of contacts from another platform or to update customer data, you can use the Contact import tool of Connectif.
Difficulty: Low.
When to use it?: To import contacts when starting the account or update customer data.
Before you begin: what you should take into account
Before performing a Contact import you should:
- Have previously created the fields in Connectif. If you import a CSV with fields that do not exist in Connectif, they will not be imported.
- Have a CSV file with the contacts you want to import, where:
- There is a single Email field or a single External ID field, since either of these will serve as the unique identifier of the contact (both fields may be completed).
- The Date and Phone fields are in their corresponding format:
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- Date: its format is ISO 8601 yyyy‑mm‑dd (year‑month‑day).
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Phone: may include or exclude the international prefix, and must be indicated without spaces in both cases. If no prefix is added the configured international prefix will be used. Two examples are:
- With prefix: +34651234567
- Without prefix: 651234567.
- Fields of type Integer must start with a number between 1 and 9. It is not possible to include fields whose first number is a 0.
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For example, if we are importing contacts with a phone number, there cannot be contacts in the same file with a value in the Phone field and others with it empty. If one contact has a phone number, all other contacts must have one assigned for that field to be imported.
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- The fields in the CSV must contain a value that matches the ID of the corresponding value in Connectif.
For example, if we are importing the subscription status to the newsletter, the information in the CSV must match one of the values of the field Newsletter subscription status in Connectif, i.e., "subscribed", "unsubscribed" or "none".
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- Checkbox-type fields can have multiple options for one contact. In those cases, the "|" character should be used to separate the texts.
STEP 1: Preparing the CSV file for import
1. In a spreadsheet such as Excel or Google Sheets, open a blank file.
2. In the first column, create a label for the email field. If you are not using email, there must be a field for the External ID since one of these two fields will serve as the unique identifier of the contact. An import can contain both values (email and external ID), but although both are Primary Keys, the external ID takes precedence over the email.
3. Add as many columns and their corresponding labels as fields you want to import into Connectif.
If the fields you are going to import do not exist in Connectif, you must create the custom fields before this process. Learn how to create them in this article.
In our example, we added the First Name and Last Name fields to the export.
4. Complete the information for each contact in the corresponding column.
5. Save the file in CSV format, separated by commas.
Find more information about exporting in CSV format in the documentation of Excel or Google Sheets.
STEP 2: Importing the file into Connectif
6. Go to "Contacts > View all" and click on Import.
7. In Select a data source, choose Import from file.
8. Select the CSV file you are going to import and upload it into Connectif.
Optionally, you can also import by copying and pasting the CSV content into the central text box, but this option is more limited as it does not support large contact imports.
9. (Optional) Indicate if the CSV file has a header row with column names, as well as the cell delimiter (comma) and column delimiter (semicolon).
10. Check the corresponding boxes:
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Overwrite existing: to overwrite with the file data if a contact already exists in Connectif with one of the imported emails, and other contact fields are also being imported.
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Update only empty fields: to update only empty fields when overwriting.
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Add to segment: to add imported contacts to a previously created static segment.
If you want to update a field in bulk, you must check Overwrite Existing. Also, if you only want to update empty fields, select Update only empty fields.
11. Click on Next .
STEP 3: Select the fields to import
12. In the menu of available data to import (left column) select the data that is going to be imported from the CSV and drag it to the central block, so that it matches the corresponding field in Connectif.
At the top left you have the value Literal available. When we associate the Literal value to a field, a small editor appears so that you can indicate the value you want for that field for all the contacts that are going to be imported. If for example you associate the Literal value with the Points field and you indicate “10”, then all the contacts included in that import will have their Points field set to a value of 10.
In our example, the data Email is associated, which is the only mandatory one. The rest is optional, but if they are not associated they will not be imported.
13. Once you have associated the data with the fields, click on Next to start the import process.
STEP 4: Import and Summary
14. On the summary screen, click on Go to the import list to check the status, the contacts that have been imported correctly, and those that have had some problem (together with the reason for the problem).
If you navigate to another page or close the browser, the import process continues in the background in Connectif, but you will no longer be able to access the import results, for example those contacts that failed to import.
Success!
The contacts import is now ready.
Any unresolved doubts?
Remember that our Connectif specialists are at your disposal. To contact them, you only have to open a support ticket by clicking the blue “Help” button on your dashboard.
Keep learning!
To make the most of your account in Connectif, we recommend that you continue with the following articles:
- Contact Sheets and digital footprint, to view all the information collected by Connectif about registered and/or anonymous contacts.
- Export contacts and activities, to transfer contact and activity information to a CSV file so it can be used outside Connectif.
- Enter a dynamic segment when identifying an anonymous contact, to delve into entity unification.
- Delete contacts, to delete a contact’s information and activity individually or in bulk.