Export/Import Contacts

The utility can be used to manage the contacts setup in the Customer Information, Site Information and in the Vendor Information files.

Complete information for all existing contacts can be exported from the Contact Information table to a spreadsheet.
The spreadsheet can be modified to reflect the latest contact details.
After the updated spreadsheet information is saved in Tab-Delimited Text File format, it can then be imported to update the Contact Information tables.

Note: Even if there are some errors reported on the import, the import of any valid records will still be completed.

The prompts are:

TRANSACTION TYPE

Select one of the following actions:

• Click Export to output the existing list of customer/site and vendor contacts with complete details.

  Up to 57 columns of data with a maximum of 10 social media, 10 user-defined, and 20 email types can be exported.
  If there are too many columns then the system will keep dialling back user-defined and social-media until it is within the range.
  The last column exported is "RECORD TRAILER (MUST BE TRL)" which is used to ensure ALL rows are successfully processed on import and no data is truncated.

  Note: Blank customer and blank vendor records will NOT be exported.

• Click Import to re-load the updated information after saving it in a Tab-Delimited Text File format, using the Select a File to Upload utility.

  The import supports up to 57 columns of data.
  The data import will only support columns up to 80 characters in length (i.e. Social media/user defined/emails).
  The import column headings must not be changed from the exported column headings, as they must match the data fields.
  

  • The Customer/Vendor # must be entered, but the name is option and is not updated if it does not match the Customer Information/Vendor Information name.
  • New Contact records may be added to the spreadsheet for any existing customers and vendors.
  • Either the Customer # or Alternate Customer # can be used to define the customer record to update.
  • When adding a new Contact, the word NEW (uppercase) can be entered in the Contact ID column to use the next available Contact ID number, or an ID can be entered manually.
    If an existing ID is entered this record will be interpreted as a changed to that existing record.
  • The Contact Name is mandatory and must match existing records to update or delete them.
  • New Titles entered in the TITLE column are automatically added to the Titles table on successful import.
  • For Emailing Types, if the column labelled EMAIL TYPE:ALL is set to Y then all email types will be checked for that Contact on import regardless of the specific column checked/unchecked on the spreadsheet.
  • Additional Social Media columns can be created by clicking the MEDIA TYPES button at the bottom of the screen before the template is exported.
  • The last column must be "RECORD TRAILER (MUST BE TRL)", and the value in that column for the rows being imported must be "TRL" or that row will error out. This is to ensure not data is truncated on import.

  Common errors include: missing TRL column, existing Contact ID, missing Contact Name, invalid birth date

  Note: Because of the column limitation on the spreadsheet, if any of the social media/user-defined/email types are not included in the spreadsheet, they will not be updated.
  This ensures that existing address and link information is not lost.

Finished?

Click ACCEPT to initiate the Export or Import action, or click CANCEL to abort and exit.

Note: When new Contacts are added through the import they can be flagged as active or not, but they are not linked to any Sites.
This needs to be done manually in Contact Information if required.

ACTIONS:
Additional actions provided by buttons on the Export/Import Contacts screen include:

• Create Additional Contact Media Types
  Before exporting the template, click the MEDIA TYPES button to add additional social media records in the Contact Social Media Types window.
  These are immediately added without requiring any import action and will be reflected on subsequent contact export templates.