Importing contacts

You can import contacts into Kentico from Comma-separated values (CSV) files.Contact import comes in handy when you need to use contacts from 3rd party systems in Kentico. Typically, you will be able to export contacts to CSV files directly from your CRM. You can also export CSV files from Excel spreadsheets. After importing contacts and adding them to a contact group, you can send them an email, start a marketing automation process or use other On-line marketing functionality.

Limitations and requirements

 Please take into account the following requirements and limitations of the import functionality:

• Only CSV files can be used for import.
• The input CSV file has to be encoded in UTF-8.
• Fields in file have to be separated by commas.
• The first row of the input file has to contain a header with the names of the columns.
• Only text contact fields are supported. Importing contact’s birthday, gender, country and other such fields is not supported.
• Contact import uses HTML 5 File API functionality, which is supported by the majority of modern browsers. However, it isn’t supported by Internet Explorer 9 and older.

`

To import contacts in Kentico

Note that the import process overwrites existing values.

1. Open the Contact management application.
2. Switch to the Contact import tab.
3. Click Select file.
4. Select the CSV from which you want to import contacts.
5. Map Kentico contact fields to the columns in the CSV file.

   1. Each field can be mapped to exactly one column.

   2. The email column is required.

      Contact mapping details

      

      Labels in gray show names of the columns from the input CSV files (id, first_name, last_name and email). Values underneath column names show sample values in each column. And finally the dropdown list under each column allows you to specify which of the contact’s fields will be filled with values from this column.

6. You can also select specified contact group where all the imported contacts will be added. Contact group has to be created in advance and only site-specific contact groups can be used.
7. Click on Import contacts. The import process starts. Please don’t leave the page until the Import finished status is shown.
   1. Once the process is finished, you can see a confirmation screen showing the result of the import.

You can now work with the contacts further.

Import finished screen description

Once the import finishes, a summary screen is displayed showing import results.

Each contact from the input file can end up in one of the following categories:

• Imported - the number of contacts successfully created in the system.
• Duplicates found and successfully updated - the number of contacts from the input file that already existed in the Kentico database and were successfully updated. Also contains entries that were in the CSV file more than once.
• Not imported contacts - the number of contacts that weren’t created or updated due to an error. You should find more information on the error in the Event log application. The most typical errors include
  • Data longer than available for the mapped field.
  • Invalid CSV in one row.