If you are the Administrator of your CRM system and you are experiencing difficulties in importing data, please contact the Customer Support team. If you aren’t your CRM systems’ Administrator, please contact the Administrator in your organisation first.
General Rules for Importing Data
All data is validated when input, whether typed in or uploaded from a data file. It is common to get data rejected by Really Simple Systems CRM for one of the following reasons:
- No Account Name (you just have Contact details without the organisation they work for)
- Invalid email address
If your data is rejected, check it over and try again.
Running the Data Import
The CRM tool data import tool runs in three phases:
First, you need to upload your data file
Phase One simply checks that the headers are valid and that each line has the requisite number of fields. It will give you matching options, based on the data in your csv file
Phase Two then checks to see if you have a record limit on your account. If the import exceeds your limit, it will inform you.
It then validates each field in each line, checking the format of numeric, date and True/False fields, that email addresses are valid or blank, that the data in fields that are driven by dropdown tables are valid entries. Phase Two also checks whether that data is already in the database. It will report how many records match based on your selected matching options.
Errors are reported and if they exist the upload aborts.
If no errors are found in the data file the tool proceeds to Phase Three, the actual upload. Before uploading the data the tool reports how many Accounts and Contacts match and provides the following options:
Update the matched Accounts and/or Contacts
Insert the unmatched Accounts and/or Contacts
Creating New Records
When new records are created any fields that are not defined in the data file will be left blank, unless they are one of default Type, Owner and Country on the upload page, in which case those values will be used.
Updating Records
When records are updated the data from non-blank fields in the data file will overwrite the existing data. If the field is not declared in the data file, or is blank, the existing data will not be overwritten. The values specified as default Type, Owner and Country on the upload page will not be used to update existing records.
Other Points
When reporting duplicate records the tool only compares the data in the data file to the existing database. Duplicates within the data file are not recognised until Phase 3, and will then be either applied or not as determined by the tick boxes on the upload page.
Microsoft Excel can be used for saving csv files, and will automatically add quotes around fields with commas in them. It’s best to view the file with a text editor like Notepad before uploading, to make sure that the format is correct.