Import existing contacts

If you already have lead contacts, one of your first steps in Friendly Automate will be to import those contacts. In this tutorial, you'll learn:

Prepare the contact list for import

Basically, you can import your contact list as it is, for example from Excel. However, some fields must have certain formats for Friendly Automate to recognize them correctly. The problematic fields are marked in red in the table below:

• time zone: Must be in [Continent]/[City] format and in English, for example "Europe/Zurich" for Switzerland. The format "GMT+1" does not work.
• country: Must be in English, for example "Germany".
• preferred language: Must be specified as an abbreviation of two lowercase letters, for example "de" for German. It is possible to specify a local idiom here, for example "de_CH" for the Swiss German idiom. However, this is not recommended for practical reasons.
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Why? For example, you later send a newsletter in two language versions, say in German (de) and English (en), and set English as the default. A person who has "de_CH" as language preference will then automatically receive the English newsletter, since the newsletter does not exist in the preferred language variant.
• date and time: Must be specified in the format "YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss".
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If your dates have a different format, you can automatically convert the whole column in Excel by selecting "Custom" for the cell format and then entering "YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss".

• boolean (yes / no): Each field that is based on a yes-or-no question can only be filled with the values "1" or "0".
• multi select: Every field that allows multiple selections from different options must have the options separated by a vertical bar (without spaces!).
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This is an example of a custom field. In the next chapter you will learn how to set them up in Friendly Automate before importing.

Check these data and adjust them before proceeding.

Finally, save your contact list in CSV format.

Prepare Friendly Automate for import

Most of the fields you use in your contact list are already predefined in Friendly Automate, such as first and last name, address and phone number, and so on. However, most likely you will also use some custom fields in your contact list that you need specifically for your business.

You should now check in Friendly Automate which fields already exist and you have the possibility to define new fields. To do this, click on the gear wheel in the upper right corner in Friendly Automate:

Then you select "Custom Fields". You will now see all the fields that already exist in Friendly Automate.

Compare the fields with your contact list and find out which new fields you need to add. If you require a custom field, click "+ New" in the upper right corner.

Now you can set the following values:

• Label: Name your field here (display name).
• Alias: This is the field name in the background. If you leave this field empty, the alias will be generated automatically. An alias cannot contain umlauts or spaces.
• Object: Contact or Company. As a rule, you select "Contact" here.
• Group: Decide here which display group the field should appear in.
• Data Type: Most data types are self-explanatory. But particularly the user-defined fields often need a special data type. I will explain the most important ones in the three examples below.
• Default value: Here you can specify whether a certain value should be preset when the field is left empty with new contacts.

Finally, click on "Save & Close" to save the field.

Example ebook reader: field with "Boolean" data type

Let's say I'm setting up Friendly Automate for an online bookstore and I want to store whether or not my customers have our ebook reader. For yes-or-no questions, I use the "boolean" data type. The boolean labels are generated automatically, but I can also customize the display text ("Yes" and "No"). In the contact list, boolean fields must always have the values "0" or "1" (!).

Example children's literature: field with "Select" data type

Now for example, I want to register whether my customers are interested in buying books for children. To do this, I choose "select" as the data type. Under "options" I can now add as many values as I want. In the left field I enter the display text and to the right I enter the field text as it is stored in my contact list (!). Under "default value" I can specify if a certain preference should be preset if the field is left empty with new contacts.

Example genres: field with data type "Selection - multiple"

For the bookstore, I will be needing another field for the genres that my customers are interested in. It should allow for multiple selections. As data type I choose "selection - multiple". Under "options" again I can add as many values as I need. In the left field I enter the display text and to the right I enter the field text as it is stored in my contact list (!). In the contact list, multiple items must be separated by a vertical bar (see examples above). As "default value" of course I have selected "thrillers". 😉

Once you have created all the custom fields, Friendly Automate is ready for the import.

Perform the contact import

Now you can import the prepared contact list. To do this, click on "Contacts" on the left in Friendly Automate, then on the arrow at the top right and then "Import".

Now select the CSV file.

In the parameters below, you can leave almost everything as it is. "Limit" only means how many contacts are uploaded in one batch. All contacts will be imported in any case. So you can leave the value at "100".

What is important is the separator: In your CSV file, the values are separated by either comma or semicolon. You can open the CSV file with a simple text editor to check this. In my example file the values are separated with semicolon:

Once you have entered the right separator, you can click on "Upload". Now you will see the following options:

• Contact owner: Here you can assign the contact list to a specific employee in your company. (At this point, you can only do this for the entire contact list.) You can also leave this option blank.
• Contact Segment: You should leave this field empty. (Why? Talk to us.)
• Tags: You can assign one or more tags to the entire contact list. A use case would be if you wanted to record where you got these new contacts from, for example "Frankfurt Book Fair 2021".

Next, you match the fields in your contact list with the fields in Friendly Automate. This step is very important for a successful import. If at this point you find that a field you need does not exist in Friendly Automate, cancel the import and go back to the step "Prepare Friendly Automate for import".

When you have matched all fields, you can perform the import. To do this, click on "Import to browser" in the upper right corner (direct import, in most cases you will choose this option) or "Import in background" (slower, recommended for extremely large amounts of data).

After the import has been successfully completed, you will see a confirmation message. You can now review your import by clicking on "View contacts" (all contacts) or "View imports" (new contacts only).

In the contact list you can now click on a contact to check the imported details.

You can find the personal details in the upper left corner under "Details".

If you want to change something manually, click on "Change" in the upper right corner, or you can close the contact there as well.

With that, you have successfully imported your contact list!

Do you have any questions? We are happy to help you via 📧 email, ☎️ phone and 👩‍💻 video calls.

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