Importing Contacts

Import Best Practices, Import Preparation, Starting your File Import

Updated over a week ago

Importing a Contact File will likely be one of the first things you do within your Ecanvasser account. This file can serve as your Database as your account activity begins, saving vital time before your organizers become active.

Contact File Formatting - Best Practice

We have found that some of the common support questions we are asked can be traced back to an issue with a Contact File upload. Spending a little bit of time ensuring that your contact file is formatted appropriately is well worth the investment - your entire Database will rely on this file and its format!

Files can be: .xlsx, .xls, or .csv, and should be a maximum size of 40 MB.

If you require to upload a File larger than this, it may be split into multiple files for individual upload.

If you have any problems importing your file, you can check out our Formatting your contact file, alternatively, you can contact Support. 

Top Tips

  • The individual order of columns within your File is not critical, you will have the opportunity to assign column headings later in the upload process.

  • Consistency! Ensure that the information in individual columns remains uniform (if it isn’t, uploading separate Files) may be the best option, or else you may want to 'clean' your data

  • Be thorough - even though your campaign effort may be quite local, to ensure that your addresses are geocoded (converting addresses to locations on the map), be sure to include complete addresses, including state.

  • If you wish to pre-populate any of your custom fields with generic information, you must add this to your file before importing your Contact File.

    • For example. pre-populating a column with "N", so you only have to fill out "Y".   Thereafter, Custom Fields may, of course, be created but they will not be pre-populated with information.

  • Files with an excessive amount of columns are likely to be incompatible with processing. We recommend that you review your csv file and reduce the number of columns to the key data points that are needed.

Preparing your File for Import

From the Import page:

  1. Go To the Import Data Page

  2. Select the UPLOAD FILE Option

3. Select a File from your Local Hard drive

Once your File has completed uploading, you must finalize the data, before beginning your import.

 4. Use the Select Field header to title each individual column in your File (that you wish to import) from the pop-up dialog.

  • A number of fields are required to be completed for an import to take place, these are marked with a black asterisk and relate to the minimum level of data required on a record:

5. You can create Custom Fields within the pop-up dialog as well as new Election fields:

Start the Importing your File

  1. Once all the columns that you need to import are selected, the next step is to select the START IMPORT button. You will now be alerted to any potential entries that may cause issues. It will also notify you if you have completed all the required fields.

  2. Use the arrows to cycle between entries with potential issue

  3. You can now choose whether to CANCEL, to further review and revise your File, or you can select Confirm Import to proceed.

The system will ask you to verify that the addresses in your contacts files appear accurate based on where they appear on the map:

Click NEXT if you are happy that the addresses are appearing in the correct place within the map.

You can now review the progress of your contact file upload.
Once the Status column shows Completed, these contacts will be listed on our Database page.

Import Summary

Click on the arrow to the right or on the import to see your Import Summary and other options available to you.

Once the file is imported, you have a few options available:

  1. Delete the Import

  2. Download/Export the file

  3. Re-import the file

Summary

  1. Number of Total Rows within your file

  2. How many new contacts created

  3. How many houses/contacts were merged

  4. How many new houses created

Skipped Rows

Skipped rows will occur whenever a row in your import file is missing a value(s) for any of the required import properties. If any rows in your file have been skipped, they will be indicated within your summary.

Reviewing your skipped rows will allow you to see which records caused an issue and what piece of required information is missing from the row.

Updating your file with the required information and re-importing the file will resolve the issue with skipped lines. otherwise, skipped rows do not import into your database

Import Mapping

This will allow you to see how you have mapped the columns in a previous import given you can import the file multiple times or merge the file to append data.

Importing Resources

Support articles have been linked that you may find helpful while going through the import process.

Learn more about imports - Explore your Importing Contact Data Options

Setup your import file - Understanding Your Contact File

Troubleshoot import issues - Troubleshooting your Data Import

Geocoding your File

The Geocoding process will next begin.
Geocoding is the process whereby your contact's addresses will be translated into latitude and longitude points on the map so they can best be plotted.

This process is generally completed within 24 hours and is dependent on the size of your contact file.

The accuracy of the geocoding process is reliant on the data that is provided as part of the address. Here is a breakdown of the geocoding accuracy types, known as Location Type, and their associated meanings:

If you have any questions, you can message us via the chat or email support@ecanvasser.com

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