Details
If you use another system for storing your primary contact data (such as a CRM or practice management software program), you'll likely want to update the contact data in our system from time to time.
Some integrations will do this for you automatically - but it your system doesn't integrate with ours, you can still manually update the data quickly & easily whenever you need to.
Here are some reasons you might need to update contact data in our platform:
- You may like to start segmenting your list and wish to add in the data for segmenting your contacts;
- You may have merged lists together and need to update contact data to work out who came from which list originally;
- You might be running an event and wish to update the list with the details on whether your contacts are attending or not;
- You might simply wish to add new contacts to an existing list
Video
How-to Guide
Import New Contacts (and Update Those That Have Changed)
In this guide, we'll essentially be following the steps from the Import & Upload Contacts article - aside from an additional step in the Advanced Settings area.
- From the sidebar, select Contacts.
- Use the various dropdowns at the top to select the folder & list you'd like to work with.
- Click .
- Choose Upload a file, then for your file.
- Click . Your list will be uploaded and analysed by the system.
- If your uploaded file has column headers, our system will attempt to match the columns to existing fields on your list - but you can click on the dark grey column header to re-map fields, skip the field (the Skip this column option) or create a new field (the New field option) from the data in the column, as shown.
- Next, click Settings over to the right hand side. The import settings dialog will open.
- Enable the Update existing Contacts... setting and choose the field you'd like to match on. In most cases, this is the Email address field - but if you use another unique identifier for your contacts, such as a Customer ID, then choose that field from the dropdown.
- Click .
- Click to update your contact data. Any new contacts that were in your file but weren't previously on your list will be added to your list. Any contacts who were previously on your list but data against them in your file has changed, will be updated.
Optional Step: Remove Contacts That Weren't in the Upload
So far, we've imported our contacts over the top of the existing list. Any new contacts will have been added, and any contacts that already existed (but had different data against their record) will have been updated.
However, we don't delete contacts for you automatically. So what if you've got contacts who were already in the system - but were not in your spreadsheet; such as staff that have left, or customers who have opted out? How do we go about removing them from the list? Let's take a look...
- Open the contact list in question.
- Run an Advanced Search, and search for the following:
Date Last Modified - Before - [The date you ran the import] - Click . All contacts that were not added or updated in the upload, will now be shown. Thus, anyone shown must not be in the spreadsheet.
- Select the contacts that appear (a 'select all' option is available) and choose Delete from the Actions dropdown to remove these contacts from your list.
Further Reading
Some of our software integrations may allow automated contact syncing.