Member import

Import existing contact information into Ambassify and send targeted content to your advocates.

Gert Sallaerts avatar
Written by Gert Sallaerts
Updated over a week ago

Our import is based on CSV files; these are files you can create yourself from existing Microsoft Excel spreadsheets or that can be downloaded from most other services.

To import members, you should navigate to:

  • The members overview

  • Click the import button

Excel structure

Our import is very flexible regarding the format in which your spreadsheets are organized. We only require you to have specific columns, but we don’t care where they are located or what their titles are.

Whenever creating a new spreadsheet for import you should ensure that you have at least one field that uniquely identifies your users (e-mail or telephone), and that’s it. You are good to go!

We do however have a list of other recommended fields which will help you get started with our presets throughout the platform. Including a column with these fields is strongly recommended.

  • Language containing the language code. Example: NL, FR, or EN. The same goes if you want to import the country, you can also use the country codes in your CSV-file.

  • First name containing a person's first name

  • Last name contains a person's family name.

By default, these columns will be used in messages to address a person by their first name, giving your message a personal feel rather than those cold automated e-mails.

Matching columns

When the imported spreadsheet is first loaded there will be an interface highlighting all the columns found in your document, including some samples from the spreadsheet that will help you identify the different columns and what they actually contain; this is especially useful when importing from a different platform.

For each unconfigured column, there is a dropdown from which you can select the field into which to store that column's data. In the example above, the first column is assigned to First name and the second to Last name as indicated by the line underneath the header.

Clicking on the red trash can icon in the header of a column will remove the target field for that column, this allows you to re-assign a column if it was assigned incorrectly or if you no longer wish to import it into the user profile.

You are not required to assign all columns to a field; all of the columns that have not been assigned a target field will be ignored by our import.

Manually adding data

If the contacts in the import file all have the exact specifications, you can link them with a specific language, group, or amount of points. You can use an existing group which you created in the settings, or you can create a new group for this specific import on the spot.

GDPR Compliance

As part of the GDPR regulations, you are asked to confirm some safety checks, which ensures that your data is in line with Ambassify and GDPR guidelines. The import cannot be continued if your database does not meet these requirements.

Advanced import configuration

Note: If you are uncertain what these settings mean, you might not need them; these should be automatically detected. If you have any issue with your spreadsheet, you can always contact support, and we will help you on your way.

Column delimiter

If our import wizard cannot find the correct character to delimit your columns, you can select it manually here or ask the interface to try again at autodetection. If the entire spreadsheet is shown as a single column, this option may solve your problems.

First row of CSV contains

If your spreadsheet has a header you do not wish to import, you can select the content of the first row using this dropdown. If you select Titles from this dropdown, we will not import the first row.

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