How do I import a list of contacts from a CSV file?

Import CSV brings in a whole list of contacts at once, from a spreadsheet export of a previous tool, a sign-up sheet, or anywhere else you keep a list. Only your organization's admin can do this.

Prepare your file

Every row needs at least one of: a first name, a last name, an email or a phone number. A row with only a first name, only an email or only a phone number imports fine. Peakify tries to detect common header names automatically, in English and French (such as Prénom, Nom and Courriel), and only matches whole words, so a column called Hotel or Stage is left alone. You can also include: Email, Phone, Tags, Marketing Consent and Birthday.

Files from Excel work as they are. Peakify reads comma, semicolon and tab separated files, and UTF-8, UTF-16 and Windows text. If it had to guess Windows (Latin-1) text, it tells you on the mapping screen and in the summary, so you can check that accents look right. If a file has characters it cannot read, it is refused instead of being saved damaged. In Excel choose Save As, then CSV UTF-8, and try again. Files over 3 MB are refused, so split a bigger list into several files.

Phone numbers should include the country code, like +1 204 555 0123, plain North American numbers are normalized automatically. An extension after the number ("ext 45" or "x45") is left off. A short number such as 555-0123 with no area code is not guessed at, that row is listed as unreadable. Multiple tags in one cell can be separated with a comma, semicolon or a pipe.

In the Marketing Consent column, yes, y, true, subscribed, opted in and agreed mean agreed. No, n, false, unsubscribed, opted out and declined mean declined. An empty cell, or a file with no Marketing Consent column, leaves that contact as Not recorded: Peakify never marks someone as agreed on their behalf. A word it does not know, such as "maybe", makes that row unreadable rather than a guess, because consent is a legal record.

Import the file

1. Go to Contacts and click Import CSV.
2. Choose your file. Peakify reads the header row and shows you which column it matched to which field under Column Mapping.
3. Check the mapping and fix anything it guessed wrong, or set a column to Skip to leave it out of the import. You need at least one column mapped, such as First Name, Email or Phone, before you can continue.
4. Choose a Consent Attestation, the source these contacts gave permission through (an existing customer relationship, a web form opt-in, a verbal agreement, or a signed paper form) and the date. The date starts on today's date in your organization's time zone, and it cannot be a day that has not happened yet there. This is recorded against every contact you import.
5. Click Import. You get a summary: how many imported successfully, how many failed, and how many were skipped as duplicates. Imported plus failed always adds up to the total. The summary has a line for the duplicates and a line for rows that could not be read, and the list below it shows each reason next to the row number from your file.

What counts as a duplicate

A row is skipped, not overwritten, if its email or phone number already matches a contact already in your organization. The summary tells you how many were caught by email and how many by phone, so you know it is not silently discarding rows.

If the email or phone number belongs to a customer you moved to Deleted customers, the row says so: "This customer is in Deleted customers. Restore them there, then import again." If the email belongs to a customer who was merged into another one, the row says that instead.

If a birthday did not come through

Peakify reads YYYY-MM-DD, YYYY/MM/DD, and MM/DD/YYYY (or MM-DD-YYYY) style dates. A birthday it cannot read is simply left blank on that row, the rest of the contact still imports. The summary tells you how many birthdays were skipped this way.

Who can do this

Importing is limited to your organization's admin. Advisors can view, search, message, edit and add notes to contacts, but cannot bulk-import. If you are an advisor and need a list imported, ask your admin.