Whether your contacts are stored in an email program, a spreadsheet here’s how to import them into Soffront CRM so you have all your business contact information in a central database for Customer Management.
First, you need to export your contacts into a file. Below file formats are supported:
- Comma-separated values (.csv)
- Excel Spreadsheet (.xls)
Avoid importing issues by following these tips:
- When you export & save your spreadsheet, click on Save As and choose “.csv”or “.xls” format.
- The first row of your spreadsheet must be your column headers. These will match with your CRM Accounts/Contacts form.
- Make sure the date is in MM/DD/YYYY format e.g. 12/31/2014
- Do not use special characters in your data. Characters like @#$%&*+ may cause issues.
Second, Follow the steps below to Import Accounts:
Navigate to Sales > Accounts > Accounts Home and click on the Import button
- Click on Import
- In this example, we will see how to import from a file and select a workflow. The steps for importing from Excel file are the same. Once you clicked on Import below page will appear.
- The import page opens up in a new tab.
- Choose file: Browse and select the .csv source file you have created earlier.
- Group: Populates all your active groups. This would be blank while you are importing for the first time. Click on the “Add a new Group” option to create a new group. Your imported leads will be put into the selected group. It is required to choose a Group.
- Workflow: Assign a workflow for your imported records ( Workflow field will show up only if you have multiple ACTIVE workflows for Accounts ).
- Workflow is unavailable for Importing Contacts (See Below)
- Status: Populates all the stages you have defined in your workflow. Choose a value to assign imported leads to that particular status.
- Source : Select the source from where you collected your leads. Example: Web Forms, Campaigns, mixers etc. You can choose “I would map my sources from the CSV file” option also and map source field of the Source file with Source field in CRM.
- Check the checkbox: Please verify that these contacts have given you their permission to email them. We do not allow rented or purchased lists. These contacts must have either asked to receive emails from you or have close relationship with your organization.
(Note: Until the checkbox is checked, the “Select” button will not be active and the you will not be able to move to the next step.) - Click on Select button.
4. Map your column names to the CRM’s database column names.
You will need to map (point to the matching entry) the columns in your file to the existing CRM columns so that all the columns being imported are saved correctly. You can try Auto Map or perform this task manually (recommended).
The left side shows the fields from source file, the right side shows drop downs for each source field, which populates the fields from the Leads/Customer or Contacts form. You can manually perform the mapping between source and destination fields If there are fields that do not match, please go back to How to add Customer field in Lead/Customer or Contacts Form .
- Auto Map: This button will map identical source and destination fields automatically. Therefore your effort to map all the fields manually will be minimized.
5. Check Duplicates using Rules
- Skip: This will use the current active duplicate rules for checking duplicates
- Merge: It will import the data and if duplicates are found then it will merge the existing field values of those duplicates
6. Click on the Import button when you are done with your mapping and selecting the duplicate option
7. If any columns still require mapping you will get an alert message, click on Ok if you want to continue, else click on Cancel if you want to verify the mapping once again.
8. Once the import is done you will receive a confirmation message as shown below. This will display details on how many records were imported, how many failed and if there was any duplicate. ( duplicate records are checked according to email address)
