Importing a list of contacts into Precis only requires an Excel spreadsheet with appropriately marked columns.

Location:  Contacts > Useful Tools > Import/Export Contacts

Process

1.  Locate the Useful Tools box in the dashboard of the Contacts extension in Precis.

2.  Import your contact list.  It's very important that this list is an Excel spreadsheet in .xls format for Precis to be able to read the columns. 

• Organize the contacts in a clear, clean manner on your spreadsheet.  The first row should be the signifiers for the contents on the column.   You must have at least a first name and e-mail address for Precis to able to import the contact.

• Feel free to add additional columns, such as additional/alternate e-mail addresses and phone numbers, fax, address, state and city, position in the company, etc.

3.  From the file picker, upload your contact list into Precis.

• Excel defaults to three sheets in a workbook, name them as you wish.  For simplicity sake, keep all of your contacts on Sheet 1.  Choose this sheet from the drop down in the screen that follows uploading your .xls list into Precis.

4a.  Now Precis will organize the data in your spreadsheet to translate into individual contacts.  The first step is to determine which Group you'd like the contacts to be stored.  Select the group from the Media Manager (or create a new one) for these contacts to be placed.

Duplicate Record Handling - If you're importing a contact that may already be in the system, tell Precis how to handle it.

• Replicate All Duplicate Records with New Data:  Example:  If Bob Smith is already a saved Contact in Precis, but the sheet also contains information for Bob Smith, this will override the existing entry for Bob Smith with the new data in your sheet, ONLY if the email address in both entries are the same.  Bob Smith with a Yahoo! email address and Bob Smith with a Gmail address will not be merged, because it assumed they are two different people.
• Skip All Duplicate Records Completely:  Entirely skip the importing of a contact in the sheet that is already in Precis.
• Skip Duplicate Records but Subscribe Records to Selected Groups:  Precis will not import the duplicate contact from the sheet, but will find the contact already in Precis and subscribe it to the group you have selected.

 4b.  From the series of drop downs, match the columns in the spreadsheet with the contact-form fields in Precis.  This is why it is important to clearly name your contact signifiers; they should easily match up so Precis can know which columns to read to match up your data. 

Once clicking the Submit button, Precis will extract the data from your spreadsheet according to the signifiers you have matched to the contact fields and upload your contacts.

Be sure to review the group you've selected to ensure the contacts were imported correctly according to where you've directed the data.