How to import your contact database

If your contacts already live in a spreadsheet or another system, don’t re-type them: the import tool brings them in by the hundred, families included.

Importing your database

1. Log in to your web office, go to the top group and open the Members tab. Under ‘Tasks’ you’ll find ‘Import users from a file’ and, if your people are grouped into families, ‘Import users and families from a file’.
2. Before importing, open your chosen option and use the two links there: ‘Import file column details’ tells you every field the import accepts and the exact format each one needs, and ‘Download a sample CSV file’ gives you a template that includes any custom fields you’ve set up.
3. Prepare your data as a CSV file (TSV also works). A last name is required for every row, and if you’re importing families, so is the family ID that links the two files. Everything else can be left blank, though a first name and gender are well worth including if you know them.
4. Run the import: choose to start a new import, select your file and format options, then map each column of your data to the right field. Mandatory fields show in red, and columns you don’t want can simply be left unmapped.
5. The data is checked and any errors summarised. If several rows have problems, export the file with the error descriptions, fix them in your spreadsheet, and re-import; that’s quicker than fixing rows one at a time.
6. Review the summary of how many contacts were imported and click ‘Finish’. Your new people are on the Members tab.

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Good to know

• The file itself can be up to 50 MB, and must be a .csv or .tsv, so a very large database may need splitting into two or three imports. Remember the one-import rule above when you do: each person can only be brought in once.
• The users-and-families import uses two files, one for people and one for shared family details like address and home phone, connected by a Family ID column in each. It stores the address once per family, which makes future editing much easier.
• Passwords can’t be imported; people receive a link to set their own when their login is enabled.
• Extra information like DBS expiry dates needs custom fields set up before the import so they appear in the mapping step; custom fields have their own guides in Site Settings. Custom-field data must come in with the main import, not as a later update.
• Imported people arrive with rota reminders switched on, set to three days ahead. There’s no rota column in the import file, so this isn’t something you set or need to check; each person can change it themselves later from their profile.
• Record people’s consent to hold their data before importing it; the import is the moment your database inherits your data protection obligations.