Add Your New People to Your System

In the blog post “Export Your People to Safety” we talked about creating a CSV backup file for your contacts. Yay backup! Now what?

Once you have your backup organized the way you want, you automatically have a copy of your contacts list in a format that other contact organizing platforms can understand. This “backup” file has just become a whole lot more useful.

With it you will be able to upload your contacts to MailChimp or Aweber and get an email newsletter started, or you can send it to a professional printer to send out postcards or other physical mailers, or you could get started with a CRM (Contact Relationship Manager) like Zoho or Infusionsoft. The CSV file is the fastest way to get all your contacts into another program that manages or uses contacts.

Let’s talk about how this works.

Recap on the CSV file (short version)

A CSV (Comma Separated Values) file is one of the file types that MS Excel and Google Sheets can read and write. It is just a simplified spreadsheet that is used to import data into various other programs.

CSV files have 2 major elements. The Header and the Data.

The Header

The top row of your spreadsheet [Row 1] is the header. This row tells other programs what kind of information is in the column below.

Example:

The Data

Rows 2 and below will contain your data. This is all the information on your people that you want to share with the other program and each row across represents a profile.

Example

You can manipulate your data in the spreadsheet and when you save your file, simply use the “save as” command and choose “CSV Comma Delimited” for the file type.

The CSV file is a simple file. You don’t NEED to “export” to create one. You can create one manually. Sometimes just sitting down and entering contact information from business cards to a spreadsheet can be faster than figuring out an “automated” way.

1. Open a basic spreadsheet in Excel or Google sheets
2. Type in a list of labels for the Header row, like Name, Phone, Email
3. Type in your data
4. Save as .CSV

NOTE: As other programs become more sophisticated they can often use Excel or Google Sheets data directly. You might not actually need to save the information as a CSV file, but it is important that you know what it is.

Here is a handy printout you can use for reference when working with a CSV spreadsheet file.

Import Your Data (Contacts)

Once you have your data organized, you can import it into whatever program you need. This process is often* the same for restoring a backup as it is for getting new information into your system.

*Many systems have their own backup process for backing up and restoring information, use their first. But CSV is a good backup to the backup and it is understandable to many different programs for when you want to switch systems.

To get the CSV information into the new system you will look for the Import option. Then you will go through a series of predictable steps.

1. Export
2. Upload file
3. Map headers
4. Import

Let’s talk about them one at a time.

Export:

This just means to copy information from your file into the new system. Don’t worry your file will not be harmed when you use it to import.

Upload File:

Choose the information (your CSV file) that you want to give to the new system and send it to them online.

Map Headers:

This is the fun one. Remember our example?

Programs are always renaming things. If your CSV file is labeled as it is above and the new program prefers different titles you may need to translate for them.

Let’s say they want
First Name – Telephone – Email Address

You would “Map” the information from your CSV file to their naming convention.
Name = Full Name
Phone = Telephone
Email = Email Address

Computers are dumb, some programs can automatically recognize that Name and First Name are actually the same thing and some don’t. You need to make sure they get it right.

Import:

Once you have told the system what is what you can hit the final Import button to initiate the process.

Be sure to look over the new information in your system and make sure it imported correctly. Most programs have a way to undo an import so you can redo it if it goes wrong.

Check out this video to see how it’s done 🙂

And please, let me know if you would like help with this. See the offer below.

Nicole Lux-Ritchie - Founder of Luxcentric

Nicole's mission is to help feminine professionals gain the technical
skills they need to grow their business and focus on their missions.
The focus of Luxcentric is on training practical strategies in the area of the core technologies.
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