The import function is used to import new contacts, to group contacts based on labels or to updating existing contacts. These are all done using a CSV file.
Follow these steps when you prepare your file.
- You need to export your CSV file from Excel so that the delimiter (the character used to separate values) is a semicolon (;). This is standard for CSV files in Engage.
- The file must include a column for the key field (the required field for a specific contact type).
- The contact import validates on primary key but doesn't have any validation on unique attributes, meaning the CSV importer will not check if any contacts share a unique attribute. Make sure to remove all duplicates for both key and unique attributes before importing a file.
- Separate different contact types to avoid duplicates.
- The file should include headers so you can map the right receiving field in Engage (this can be changed manually during the process if the match is incorrect).
- Use labels. A good habit is to always add a column in your file with a unique label, you can always delete this later in Engage. It is very helpful if you quickly need to find your newly imported contacts.
Example:
Follow these steps for specific fields:
- Checkboxes/Consent values must be imported as True/False and not Yes/No. This applies to all Accept flags, consents and custom attributes that have the type checkbox.
- Multiple values in one field must be separated with a comma (i.e. label1,label2,label3).
- Phone numbers should always begin with the country code or +. Phone numbers missing the country code will be interpreted as a phone number from your standard region.
- The date of birth must be 8 digits with dashes (example: 1995-12-07).
- Dates/times otherwise must follow the ISO 8601 standard with a time zone designator (example: 2021-01-26T15:10:17+01:00).
- Personal identification number for Sweden can be 10 or 12 digits, with or without dashes. A Finnish Personal identification number can be 11 digits, with or without dashes.
- Gender must have the format Male/Female/Other/Prefer not to say with a capital letter or be left empty. (Please note: If your settings allow the Personal identification number to set the age of the contact automatically, this field should not be included.)
- Recruited store must be entered with the store's external ID and the header name of the column must include "ID". (Please note: If you import contacts with a Recruited store, the Favorite store for this contact will automatically be set to this value in Engage.
- The country association must be entered according to standard country codes: SE, FI, NL, DE
Read about how to manually import your file here.
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