Edition: Professional, Business, Enterprise
User-level: System Administrator
Previous steps: Unique Contact IDs, Contact Title, Contact Roles
In Synergy, there are three types of contacts.
Contacts - are project-related companies or businesses that you deal with.
Individuals - entities that you work with that are not Contacts. Usually, the difference is that Individuals don't have business numbers or registrations.
A good example would be J & J Doe.
Personnel - are the people that work at the companies you are importing or in the example of Individuals, are the people John Doe and Jane Doe.
It is highly recommended that you consider the Previous steps above before you attempt to Import Contact Records.
Some things like Unique Contact IDs or Contact Titles, may not require you to DO anything. Provided you're happy with the System options, it will simply be a case of knowing what they are so that you can use them to complete the Synergy Excel template.
Then, some Roles are specific to your project stakeholders, so it is usually a good idea to align these with how you refer to them, and what they will do on your projects.
All of these elements are important because the software is looking to match fields that you enter on the Synergy Excel template, with those in the system.
Accuracy is vital, and there are some additional Tips! at the end of this article.
So, how do you import your contact records?
1. Download the Synergy Excel template.
Using the Organisation drop down, navigate to
Settings>Organisation>Data Import>Excel Import
check that you are on the Contacts tab, and click Download.
Your download is the excel file named Synergy data import - Contacts
There should be two sheets (tabs), one with instructions similar to those below, and the other 'Contacts' to populate with data.
Warning:
Do not adjust the column names.
Do not adjust the order of the columns.
2. Check what information can be imported.
Navigate to the sheet (tab) 'Contacts' to see the column names that will match fields in Synergy.
3. Export your contacts from your other system.
Use an export feature in your current system to get an excel style output (commonly CSV) with all your existing contact details. This could mean you export the contact details from your accounting system, or another software package, or maybe you already have it in a spreadsheet.
4. Match your data to the Synergy Excel columns.
Compare the data in your excel file to the columns in the Synergy Excel template and check you have all the required information as well as the optional information that you want to import.
5. Using the Synergy Excel template
Copy and Paste your data into the Synergy Excel template.
Columns marked blue are mandatory.
Columns marked green are optional.
Do not change the formatting anywhere (e.g. number, date, currency etc).
Do not enter data beyond the last column of the table.
Do not rearrange the order of columns.
Do not rename the columns.
Use 'Skip' in column A to skip the record during import. Any row that contains 'Import' or is left blank will be imported.
Do not change the sheet order within the workbook.
If formulas, lookups or a general place to paste data is required, create an additional sheet (tab) and position it as the last sheet (tab) on the right-hand side.
6. Double-check the data in the template.
Make sure that all the contacts you want to import are listed, and that the data is showing up in the correct columns in the Synergy Excel template.
Check this data is correct in the Excel template:
All contacts have a contact type listed.
For Contacts a 'Company name' should be listed.
For Individuals, an 'Individual name' must be listed (see above)
For Personnel type contacts a 'Company or Individual name' must be entered to identify where the 'First name' and 'Last name' are to be nested.
Contacts cannot have a first or last name listed on the company row. This would be an extra row for the Personnel data.
Personnel cannot be imported if the matching company row is not created first, so the Contact must be in this Synergy Excel template before the Personnel entry, or already exist in Synergy.
Multiple Tags and Roles can be entered. When multiple Tags or Roles are required, use a comma to separate the data; Tag1, Tag2, Tag3 as an example.
Roles can only be imported if they already exist in Synergy. Setup Roles in Settings > Contact lists > Roles.
7. Import Synergy data import - Contacts
Using the Organisation dropdown menu, navigate to
Settings>Organisation>Data Import>Excel Import
check that you are on the Contacts tab and click Upload.Select 'Add files' and navigate your files selecting your completed Synergy data import - Contacts. Or you can drag and drop the file into the browser.
An import preview will display your data to review before the import.
In event that you get errors, click on the red and orange triangle for instructions on how to correct the error.
Skip any lines in the preview window that you don't want to import. Any lines that have an error are automatically skipped.
Click the Import button to import all the valid data.
After this import, your Contacts will be in Synergy and you'll be ready to load Projects.
Importing Contacts Tips!
Tip: It is usually a good idea to enter one record of each Contact Type and check it before doing any bulk data uploads.
Tip: While it is possible to upload a minimum requirement, and you can run the upload multiple times, you cannot use this Import function to Update records, so the more you can enter in one go, the more efficient you will be at populating your Synergy organisation.
Tip: Any records skipped can be downloaded as a new file and corrected. This allows you to fix the errors and then reload the skipped rows.
Tip: Use the example records to understand how the entries should look. Then delete them so they don't accidentally get imported.
Where to next?
What other features does this relate to?