Essenty gives you the ability to import contacts from a CSV file, up to 10,000 at a time. 






Please CLICK HERE if you are importing your Virtual Office contacts.




IMPORTING YOUR FILE



First, you should export your contacts to a CSV file.

We have made the importing of contacts very easy and this short 6-minute video below will help you see how.



Written directions are provided below the video.




WRITTEN INSTRUCTIONS FOR IMPORTING A CSV FILE



STEP ONE - Import File


1. Click on the purple "NEW" button in the left upper corner of your Essenty back office and then you can select "Import contacts".


2. Give your import list a name in the "Import Title" space. It's always good to name it something that you'll recognize easily, later.


3. Click the blue "Choose a local file" button and find your exported CSV file. It will ask you to confirm the file you want to import, just click "Add" if it's the right file.


TROUBLESHOOTING: When importing, if it tells you the file type is incorrect this might be because you opened the file in "Numbers" (a Mac spreadsheet). Once you do that, make changes and save, it changes the file from a CSV file to a Numbers file. To overcome this you should either not open the downloaded CSV file before importing or if you must open it and make a change, choose "export to CSV file" to save it back to the file type that is needed before importing.




STEP TWO - Map (match) fields


Once the file comes in, you'll be taken to the second step of the process which is where you can tell our system how to match the fields of your file to Essenty's contact fields.


1. Checkmark the box if your exported spreadsheet has no headers. To see what this looks like you can click and unclick the box and notice what changes happen in the "Column Header" (shown highlighted above). 


2. We recommend that you choose "Auto capitalize name fields".


Now you can review how the data is going to be imported.


Each column header should be matched to a contact field in Essenty. Some of them may have been done for you based on your file's column header name. Anything that hasn’t been matched can be done manually with the dropdown menu or you can choose “Do Not Import”. (see screenshot below).








HELPFUL TIP

There are spots (all through this process) that offer info to help you along the way. Look out for the "i" icons and just hover over them for more info.




STEP THREE - Organize Contacts


Organizing your contacts helps you get the most benefit from your contact manager. Any edits made on this step will be applied to all contacts in this import. 


Note: The "Contact Type" field will not be available to make edits if the information was already included in your import file.  


Keep in mind that after your import is complete, you will be able to organize your contacts one at a time or by selecting them and using bulk actions.


1. Select Contact Type

  • None
  • Lead (prospect)
  • Customer
  • Brand Partner
  • Professional Account
  • Team




2. Choose Contact Rating 

You decide how to use this. It gives you a choice of 1 through 5. You personally decide which is the "hotter" contact or how you define the rating. Any edits made on this step will be applied to all contacts in this import.



3. Tagging Contacts 

This is a further way to sort contacts down to other categories within your larger "type". You can also go back and tag batches of contacts after they are imported and not put any tag on it during the import because any edits made on this step will be applied to all contacts in this import.


Here are some examples of what tags might be and keep in mind there is no limit.


Tag examples:

  • John's Leg (Mary's Leg etc.)
  • Thieves PSK
  • Oils PSK
  • Team Builder
  • Business Builder
  • ABC Trade Show
  • Trade Show Contact
  • Loves Pets
  • Healthy Home Enthusiast
  • Added "insert date"



Keep in mind that after your import is complete, you will be able to organize your contacts one at a time or by selecting them and using bulk actions.




STEP FOUR - Submit Import



You're almost done importing your contacts! 

Please answer the two questions seen in the screenshot below, then you can click “Submit Import”.


Confirming to update existing contact records is a safe choice. It's there if you want to update the existing fields (like phone number, email, rank, etc) or add new information to the contact. Any existing fields that you do not make changes to will not be erased.





Click Submit Import.  It may take some time if there are many. You'll get a notification when it's done importing and ready to view.



Clicking "View Details" on the notification will bring you to your newly imported contacts screen. You can see how many were added, skipped, and updated.  If there were any errors, you'll see it there and can click the arrow to review anything.




If you want to view the filtered list containing the recent contacts you just imported, click the three dots to the right side that show up when your mouse is selecting the row.



After your import is complete, you can organize your contacts one at a time or by selecting multiple and using the 'Actions' button.



HELPFUL TIPS
(optional) 


Here is a tip that can help you if you are familiar with spreadsheets and you have a large number of contacts to import. You might choose to add a couple of columns before you import: 


  • "Contact Rating" column and rate the contacts on a scale of 1-5
  • "Note Content" column and add notes if your file doesn't have a "note" field, then add any notes before importing.


Also, if you're importing a large number of contacts, and your file didn’t come from the Virtual Office, you can add a column named “Contact Type” to your file. 


You can then assign a type for each before you import, choosing from these five only:


  • Lead/Prospect
  • Customer
  • Brand Partner
  • Professional Account
  • Team