Before you get started with importing make sure you've created your custom detail sheets. You can find the article for custom detail sheets here.
How to Import Contacts
You can use CSV files to import contacts to your site quickly and easily.
From your Homepage, hover over your People tab and then select "Import". You will then be able to select the .csv file from your documents or drag it onto the page.
You will see a pop-up asking you what you would like to do with the file. Select Import.
Best Practices
We know how important your people and contact data is to your organization. Here are some best practices to help you have a great import experience:
Import Giving First
If you are importing contacts with giving data you will want to import that data into Subsplash Giving first. Once you have ensured that your data has been imported as desired you can then import additional information into Church Management. As long as your contacts are using one of the same Unique Identifiers as the data imported into Subsplash Giving, Church Management should merge the contacts when you import additional data for those contacts. Find out more about importing data into Subsplash Giving here.
Unique Identifiers
Subsplash Church Management uses 3 kinds of “unique identifiers” to detect and merge duplicates during the import process. These unique identifiers are email address, phone number, and street address. Every time you import contacts or update your contacts by importing, you will want to make sure to include one or more of these unique identifiers in your import spreadsheet to help Church Management detect and avoid duplicates. Please note that a number assigned by another CHMS like "External ID" or "Member ID" is not used by Church Management to identify contacts and its' use will not help Church Management avoid duplicates when importing.
Custom Data Fields
For any custom data fields you need to track, make sure to create those using custom detail sheets before you import. This guide will show you how to create those!
Try a Small Sample First
Start by importing 3-4 contacts to make sure your detail sheets and fields are correctly set up and you are comfortable with the system. This way, in case anything needs to be changed or corrected, you only have to do that for those initial contacts, not your entire database!
Remove Unnecessary Fields
Only include columns and contacts that you want to import into your Subsplash Church Management database, removing extraneous columns and fields will help ensure an accurate and successful import!
Households
Please note that Subsplash Church Management creates and organizes households based on a contact's address. Contacts that share the same address will be automatically grouped into households. Subsplash Church Management does not use household ID numbers and including those in your import will not automatically group families into households. To make sure your contacts are grouped into families after import you will need to include the home address in their each individual contact's CSV row.
Matching the Data
The contacts will be imported into your system with the data from your file matched to fields within Church Management. You will see the data displayed in columns with the field heading on each column.
Check each column to ensure the data has been matched to the correct heading. When the system is not clear about the field heading, you will see the button ‘Select field to map to’. Click here for a list of possible fields and select the right one.
This is particularly important with addresses as contacts can have a number of different addresses e.g. postal address, household address, etc, so you will need to select the correct one from the list.
Columns that have been matched to a detail sheet will turn green. Please note if the format of the data does not match the format in the CSV the information will not be imported.
Once you have checked all the data for import, make sure to save.
Processing time will vary depending on a few factors such as internet connection speed and the number of contacts in your CSV. Once the import is complete, you will see an ‘OK’ message. Go to the Contacts screen to see the newly imported contacts.
Please note that Church Management creates and organizes household based on a contact's address. Contacts that share the same address will be automatically grouped into households. Church Management does not use household ID numbers and including those in your import will not automatically group families into households. To make sure your contacts are grouped into families after import you will need to include the home address in their each individual contact's CSV row.
Subsplash Church Management comes with many data fields and detail sheets already created for you! If you'd like more information on how to create custom detail sheets please visit this guide.
Here's the List of Built in Detail Sheets:
Special
Groups
Contact
Title
External ID
Creation Date
Updated Date
Published Date
Archive Date
Status
Privacy
Prefix
Suffix
First Name
Middle Name
Last Name
Preferred Name
Ethnic Name
Maiden Name
Marital Status
Age
Date of Birth
Date of Birth is correct and verified (yes/no)
Email Addresses
Nametag Notes
Contact Timezone
Phone Numbers
2 Digit Country Code
Gender
Capabilities
Tags
Deceased (yes/no)
Deceased Date
Distinct From
Historical IDs
Custom Sheets
Your Custom fields