General Guidelines for Importing Data

Follow these guidelines for using a .csv file to import company and contact information:

Active Community expects imported information in a comma-separated value (.csv) format; for example, contactdata.csv.

To save an Excel file in .csv format, click Save As. In the Save as type drop-down list, select CSV (Comma Delimited). Click Save.

Header Rows—The first row of the file must contain the same column headings that are mandatory in the user interface.

For example, for contacts, it would be Last Name, First Name, Communication Email, and Company ID. User ID is only mandatory when using the import to update profiles.

For example, for companies, it would be Company Name and Company ID.

Body Rows—The data values to be imported must start in the second row of the file. For example, Jones, Bob, bob.jones@example.com, CFO, ABC123, mycomp_id.

The parts of the file:

Key	Description
1	Header row.
2	Body row.

Use either upper or lower case letters for most values. Only custom field values are case sensitive.

Use commas, tabs, or pipes to separate the information in each column.

Important: To avoid errors during the import process, do not use these characters: # (pound) or : (colon), or paragraph returns (line breaks).

Before importing the file, remove blank rows between data rows.

Include a thousand or fewer contacts or companies in each .csv file. To import more than 1000, create separate .csv files to improve import performance. For example, if you have 7000 contacts to import, arrange the data in seven .csv files that contain 1000 contacts each.

For imports that are creating profiles, at a minimum, all mandatory fields must be represented in the .csv files.

Date Field Format

Date fields must be formatted as follows: MM/DD/YYYY. For example, January 7, 2009 should be entered as 01/07/2009 in the .csv file.

If not formatted correctly, dates cause errors during the import process.

Standard ISO Codes

To import companies or contacts located in the United States or Canada, use standard ISO country or state codes. For example, if the country is USA then a company located in the state of California must include a state field with a value of either CA or California.

Disabling Imported Companies or Contacts

To disable contacts or companies by import, include a Disable Contact or Disable Company column with the value of “TRUE” for each row of contact or company data in the .csv file.

To disable companies or contacts in Active Community, see “Disabling Companies or Contacts” .

Importing Company Data when Registering or Re-registering a Company

If a company is in the registration or re-registration process, the company profile is locked until registration is complete. If you attempt to import data while a profile is locked, the email that you receive for the rejected profiles states the reason the import failed.

In addition to these general guidelines, please see:

“Company Requirements for Importing Data”

“Contact Requirements for Importing Data”

“Custom Field Requirements for Importing Data”

“Importing Company or Contact Data”

21.2 release. Updated April 7, 2021 OpenText Active Community User Guide PDF

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