Account and Contact Import Tips

Accounts and Contact Imports work best with simple, well-structured, and moderately sized data sets. You can import information related to account and contact information, activities, and event opportunities.

In this article:

Data Parsing

You should separate the data you are importing into relevant discrete fields. See below for an example of how the data should be separated.

Parsed data:

Account Name

International Council of Societies of Industrial Design -ICSID-

Contact Prefix

Dr.

Contact First Name

Hue

Contact Last Name

Jackson

Address Line 1

455 St-Antoine W Suite SS10

Address Postal Code

CA-H2Z 1J1

Address City

QC

Address Country

Canada

Phone

1-514-448-4949

Fax

1-514-448-4948

Email

office@icsid.org

 

Data Standardization

Data which follows a consistent standard is much easier to work with than data that does not. Ideally, a data set should have clear corresponding mappings to Enterprise fields and require only small manipulation. Remove any irrelevant fields to make the data set more compact and easy to work with. See below for some additional guidelines regarding the data fields.

Account Code

You can import account codes or Enterprise can create system-generated account codes. Momentus recommends auto-generated account codes as best practice. 

If a legacy system account code is only significant as a reference, you can import that code into a separate external code field. However, unlike the Enterprise account code, it is not available as a search field from the Account/Contact screens.

If you import legacy account codes as the Enterprise account code, consider the following:

  • You must have unique account codes. If you are importing existing account codes into Enterprise, you must ensure there are no duplicate account codes. If duplicate account codes exist, there is a risk the duplicate import may unintentionally override the original account data.
  • Account codes may require manipulation. To achieve consistency in the account codes, pre-insert leading zeros into the account codes to fill eight characters.

Name

A single field like ‘Contact Name’ may map into several different fields in Enterprise, such as Prefix, First Name, Last Name, Second Last Name and Suffix.  This separation is useful as it helps with searching and sorting, along with greetings in correspondence.

Separate your data in the import file according to your preferences. Excel formulas are useful for this. See Excel online help for additional information.

The example below initially had all information in a single field in the import file: Dr. Ernst Stavro Blofeld Junior. You need to divide the fields up as follows in the import file: 

Prefix

First Name

Middle Name

Last Name

Suffix

Dr.

 Ernst

Stavro

Blofeld

Junior 

When importing a contact, Last Name is a required field. If the import record does not have this information, you need to enter a placeholder value into the Last Name field or the entire record is not imported.

Drop-Down Lists

Some imported data maps to fields with pre-configured values from a drop-down list. In these cases, ensure the imported values are consistent with the existing Enterprise detail.  

For example, if you have a market segment named Sports/Health, ensure all accounts/contacts in the import file use Sports/Health as the market segment value and not other values such as Sports & Health or Health/Sports.

Dates

Importing dates require a day, a month and a year. If the import file uses text (February 3, 2043) and maps directly to an Enterprise date field, you need to convert it to a numeric date value (2-3-2043). 

Before importing into Enterprise, check that all date-related information in Excel is set to a Text or General format. The data display is controlled by Excel's regional settings. 

Distances

If you use distances for numeric user defined fields, adopt a standard unit of distance and remove the unit text (KM, Miles).

Field Widths

Enterprise fields accommodate very large names or descriptions. However, if the size limits of these fields are exceeded then the data is cut to fit within the field.

Useful Excel Functions

Excel functions are useful to manipulate data to prepare it for import. 

The VLOOKUP function is particularly useful when importing multiple contacts for an organizational account. The standard account/contact import structure allows you to import only one contact with the organization account. If you need to import additional contacts, you should use a separate import, listing the contacts and referencing the Enterprise-assigned account code of their organization.

This referencing is best accomplished using a second worksheet (exported from Enterprise), which includes the the account name and account code of the contacts' organizations. You can then reference the account code using a VLOOKUP table, keyed on the account name.

Once your data is ready, any formulas should be copied to values prior to importing.

Related articles

Comments

14 comments

Date Votes
  • Eileen Durand

    Hello, does someone have a list of all the possible account/contact fields that can be imported?  I have a template but do not think it contains all possible fields.  I also do not have any information on how to import diary entries.  Thanks to anyone who can supply whether it's a client or an UB employee.  Thanks again.

    0 upvotes

  • Sean Tame

    Hi Eileen,

    When you go to import a list of accounts, once you are in the Column Mapping, you can get the dropdown for all the fields that are available. This also includes your custom communication codes.

    I'd try there - not sure there is a documented list.

    0 upvotes

  • Wouter Dumon

    Hello,

     

    Is it possible to import the tax ID here?

     

    Thanks.

    0 upvotes

  • Carrie Spalding

    Wouter, 

    We currently don’t support importing a tax Id to an organization, but I've passed this on to Product Management.

    Thanks,

    Carrie

    0 upvotes

  • Tom Meersman

    Can someone explain what is the best way to import multiple contacts that are attached to the same company?

    I have a list of 3000 contacts, and roughly 1000 companies. Average 3 contacts per company.

    0 upvotes

  • Lee Tickett (Tickett Enterprises Limited)

    I think i've remembered this correctly...

    Assuming you have a list of contacts with company names-

    • take the company names and dedupe them into a list of companies (excel does this nice and easily)
    • import the companies (use "individual account and orgazation name" option)
    • export the list of companies with the account codes
    • use vlookup on your list of contacts to pull the company account code in
    • import the list of contacts mapping the "account code" column to the company account code (use the "account and contact record" option)

    Fingers crossed!

    L

    1 upvotes

  • Kelly Potter

    Actually, it's a little more simple than that:

    External Code can be used to link the Account & Contact. Populate a column in your data with a code that is unique to each company. Ensure this code is the same for the Company record and the Contacts of this company.

    When performing Step Four: Process Records - Untick the duplicate checking (you can check for duplicates later).

    This will import both the company record and the contact record at the same time!

    A caveat to this is that the External Code may be used for other purposes. If you have an AR Integration, please check with USI before using this field.

    1 upvotes

  • Lee Tickett (Tickett Enterprises Limited)

    Great tip, thanks Kelly

    So just to clarify- if I have a list with say;

    First, Last, External Code, Company
    Bob, Smith, D-123, 123 Company LTD
    Sandra, Jones, D-123, 123 Company LTD

    Then Ungerboeck will;

    • check if an account with external code D-123 exists 
    • (it doesn't) so create account with external code D-123
    • import bob smith and attach him to the account with external code D-123
    • check if an account with external code D-123 exists 
    • (it does) so will skip it
    • import sandra jones and attach her to the account with external code D-123

    I guess you still need to do the deduping and assigning of external codes in Excel (unless you sourced the records from a system which can provide these values) but it does make life a little easier.

    0 upvotes

  • Tom Meersman

    I can confirm the method Kelly is suggesting works. Be careful though that you use External Account Codes that are non-existent in your database or you'll overwrite existing companies.

    0 upvotes

  • Bunyemin Alkan

    Hi,

    Is it possible to import affiliations to an excisting contact account? I tried it with the standard account/contact import template with the contact account code + contactname, gone through the proces with success but nothing happend. 

    thanks,

    Bunyemin

    0 upvotes

  • Ryan Canny

    Hi Bunyemin,

    Yes, you should be able to import affiliations to an existing individual account (contact). Please reach out to our Client Care team so they can review your import file and recreation steps to see what might be preventing the selected affiliations from being updated to your existing contact(s).

    Thanks,

    Ryan

    1 upvotes

  • Jake Jestings
    • Edited

    Is it possible to import contacts with an email? I want to import these contacts then add all the accounts to a campaign so we can send a mail merge. Is this possible? 

    0 upvotes

  • Ryan Canny

    Hi Jake,

    Yes, it is possible to import contacts with an email address. When you are creating your import on Step One: Default Import Values window the Import Record As field on Processing Options section should default to Account And Contact Record (C) which is what you want this set to in order for contacts to be imported. On Step Two: Define Column Mappings window this is where you can map the column for your contacts email addresses by selecting E-Mail Address (Mail) Contact in the column label dropdown. Once you have completed Step Five: Process Records and Convert and all records have been imported successfully into Momentus you should then be able to pull these records into a campaign for what you are looking to accomplish with the mail merge.

    0 upvotes

  • Nina Dennison

    I'm trying to import information for an account, it lists "Bill-to Address" as an option for Import, but when I go to the Account and Edit Layout on the Account side it doesn't give me the same options as the Import feature. So, how do we find the "Bill-to Address" on the Account??

    Thanks

     

    0 upvotes

Please sign in to leave a comment.