Import your data

Administrators and sales managers can import people from a CSV file. Most old CRMs, and Excel, can save one.

#Before you start

1. Add your courses in Settings → Catalogue, so imported interest can map to a course.
2. Export from your old system as CSV, with a header row. Save it as UTF-8 (in Excel: Save as → CSV UTF-8).
3. Make sure every row has a full name and a phone or email.

#Run the import

1. Open People → Import / export and choose your file.
2. Map the columns: name, phone, email, city, course interest, source, notes, dates and so on. Compass shows the first rows so you can check.
3. Choose the owner for new people.
4. Preview. Compass counts new, matched, duplicate, invalid and ambiguous rows. Page through them before anything is saved.
5. Apply. Rows are saved in batches.

#How duplicates are handled

• People are matched by phone (stored in international format, India by default) and email.
• A repeat of the same person with new information adds a separate enquiry to the existing record. It never overwrites their details or owner.
• Rows that match more than one person are held for review in People → Duplicate review.
• Shared numbers (a parent, an office) belong in the Other phones column, so they don't merge unrelated people.

#Undo

A bad import can be rolled back from the import's page. People created by it are removed, and contacts it added to existing people are taken off again.

#Limits

Up to 100,000 rows and 128 columns per file.