How to Import Your Contacts

Whether this is your first CRM ( Customer Relationship Management ) or you are moving from another system, importing contacts allows you create new records or update your existing contact records.

Each row represents a contact record, and each information column represents a contact property (First Name, Last Name, Email Address, etc.)

Covered in this Article:

• Pre-requisites:

• ⚠️ Before You Import: Critical List Cleaning Steps⚠️

• How to import contacts into the CRM

• Step 1: Setting up your CSV and Custom Fields before importing

• Step 2: Check for duplicates

• Step 3: Importing your contacts

• 1st Method: If your CSV has a phone # and or email, please follow this CSV setup guide

• 2nd Method: If your CSV does NOT have an email and or phone #, please watch the video below 

• Breaking down advanced filters:

• Bulk Import Multiple Emails per Contact

• Conditions to import

• Additional Emails or Additional Phone Numbers

FAQ

• My CSV list is mixed; some contacts have an email or phone #, and some have both an email and phone. How should I proceed?

• Some of my contacts have multiple emails and or phone numbers. How should I proceed?

• Important note for people that use Keap:

• When importing the phone numbers, I get the error code 1007 'invalid required property:

• I'm trying to import a CSV with a DND Column, but all contacts are set to DND for ALL channels.

• I'm trying to import a CSV with Notes, and I cannot generate more than one note per contact record.

• I'm trying to export a CSV with Notes. 

Pre-requisites:

Before starting the import process, make sure you meet the following requirements:

• User Permissions: Only users with Admin access can import contacts.
• File Format: The file must be in CSV (.csv) format.
• File Size Limit: The CSV file must be under 30 MB. If it's larger, split it into smaller files.
• Single Sheet Requirement: Your CSV file must contain only one sheet/tab.

• CSV Requirement: The first row should NOT be blank! Include a header row in which at least one column header corresponds to a field in the system.

  
  

Note: If your CSV file includes data for fields that do not yet exist inside your FG Funnels account, you will need to create those fields as Custom Fields before completing the import. The system allows you to map CSV columns to both standard and custom fields, but only if those fields are already created in your account. Here is a tutorial video showing how to create custom fields: Custom Fields Overview

How to Import Contacts into the CRM

Step 1: Setting up your CSV and Custom Fields Before Importing

Step 2: Check for Duplicates

It's always best practice to clean your list and check for duplicates before importing into any software.

Step 3: Importing Your Contacts

1) Click on Contacts ( on the left side menu ) > Click on the "Import" button at the top right of the contacts section.

2)  Select Contacts object. Then click "Next" button at the bottom. On the Upload page, you'll want to click on the upload button to upload your CSV file and choose how you want to create and/or update existing contacts.

• Add New and Update Existing Contact Records:

  This means that it will create new contacts, and if you have any leads already in the system, it will update them with the information from your CSV file. The system will check for existing contacts in your FGF account based on the unique identifier (Email, phone, or contact id) you selected.

  
  

• Add New Contact Records: 

  This will create new contact records and will not update existing contacts in the your FGF account.

• Update Existing Contact Records:

  This option will only update existing contact records and not create new contacts in the your FGF account.

In the "Find Existing Contacts Based on " field, the default identifiers will be what's set in your Business profile's deduplication settings. To change that, click the Settings button

3) Match the fields you are importing to the standard fields in the FG Funnels system. You can do so by clicking on the dropdown menu in the "Contact Fields" column.

4) If you have unmatched field that do not have a standard field in the FG Funnels system, you will need to create a brand new custom field for this data to be imported. By going to Settings > Custom Fields, then come back

and start the import process again, Then click "Next" button at the bottom.

5) Make sure to check the box labeled "Don't update empty values for existing records" when you are importing contacts, which you may already have data on their contact record, and you do not want the system to overwrite this data with an empty field from the CSV file you are importing.

6) [ Optional ] If you do not want to import the data in the unmatched fields then check the box at the bottom that says "Don't import data in unmatched columns" Then click "Next" button at the button.

6) [ Optional ] On the Verify page, you have the option to:

-Select the option to "Create a Smartlist of contacts by the import" , this will create a brand new smart list made up of these imported contacts.

-Add Imported contacts to a workflow

-Add tags to imported contact

7) Confirm that the contacts you are importing, have opt-ed in to receive emails from you.

8) Click the "Start Bulk Import" button to begin the import.

Bulk Import Multiple Emails or Phone Numbers Per Contact

You can leverage the power of effective contact management with our new 'Additional Emails' and 'Additional Phone numbers' feature, complemented by the Bulk Import capability. 

Conditions to Import:

• To ensure contact uniqueness, both the primary and additional email/phone (if selected as the first preference) will be used. In cases where multiple duplicate matches are found for an additional email/phone, that specific email/phone will be left out. 
• Any invalid emails/phone in the additional fields will be removed, leaving only valid ones for a contact. 
• If the email/phone column in the CSV is blank, but the additional email/phone column has values, the first additional email will serve as the primary email. 
• When updating an existing contact, the specified emails in the CSV will be combined with the ones already associated with the contact. 
• The "Additional Email/phone" column can hold a maximum of 10 email IDs/phone numbers, with only the first 10 being considered if more are included.

Steps to Import

• Within the Contact Import section, users will discover new system fields named “Additional Emails" and "Additional Phone numbers" 

  

• This feature enables users to map all their extra emails.
• During the import process, it's necessary to include all additional emails in one column. These should be separated by commas (,), slashes (/), or semicolons (;), and then mapped to the “Additional Emails” field in the system.

Sample CSV

FAQ

My CSV list is mixed; some contacts have an email or phone #, and some have both an email and phone. How should I proceed?

Head over to Settings>Business Profile>Contact Deduplication settings in your account and  use the 'second preference for search' option for a mixed CSV. The system will search for the first preference and then the second if it cannot locate the first. In the example above the first preference is 'Email' and the second is 'Phone'. 

Now we can find existing contact based on the secondary field, so if the contact record has only the phone number, we can also upload them!

Some of my contacts have multiple emails and or phone numbers. How should I proceed?

You would follow the steps in the "Bulk Import Multiple Emails or Phone Numbers Per Contact" section above. Here is an example showing a contact with 2 phone numbers:

Original with two phone number columns:

Cleaned for upload version:

Important Note for People that Use Keap:

The phone field from the CSV export in Keap is incompatible with FGF. The parenthesis '()' and dashes '-' make it incompatible. We have to highlight the entire column in the CSV file and ensure it is numbered in, remove any parenthesis and dashes, and then we can import without corrupting the data in the CRM. 

When importing the phone numbers, I get the error code 1007 'invalid required property'

When importing contact, you'll need to add a country code for contacts with phone numbers outside of the country you selected in the business profile settings of your FGF account.

If your FGF account's country is set to the US, you won't need to add a +1 (US country code) to the imported phone numbers. However, if you're importing numbers outside of the US, you will need to add the country code.

Example: A FGF account that has set its business location to the US would need to add +44 for all UK phone numbers within the CSV File that is being imported. If the FGF account's country is set to a different country other than the US ( like - the UK, Australia, etc. ), you would need to add a +1 for all US phone numbers within the CSV file that is being imported.

I'm Trying to Import a CSV with a DND Column, but All Contacts Are Set to DND for ALL Channels.

When importing contacts with a DND column within your CSV, please note that the contacts will be DND for ALL the channels. If you want to DND for specific channels, please set up a workflow first and use tags to designate each specific channel you want to enable DND for.

Example: I would like john to be DND for SMS only. I would create a workflow that DNDs a contact when a tag 'DND SMS' is added. So now, on the CSV, I would add the Tag 'DND SMS' next to John's name. When importing, this would fire automation to DND John for SMS Only. 

I'm Trying to Import a CSV with Notes, and I Cannot Generate More Than One Note Per Contact Record.

When importing contact notes, you may only have one note per contact record with a limit of 5000 characters.

Please try use the "Multi Line" custom field if you have more than one note or more characters than the allowed amount.

I'm Trying to Export a CSV with Notes. 

As of now, We do not have any limit for CSV import for notes, and As per our current export behavior, we support Max of 255 Characters for the last note.