If you have a list of companies in an MS Excel sheet, it is possible to quickly/easily import these into your Influence database. 

From Release v1.00.18.157 or later, whenever an import is performed the system will create a GROUP containing details of the Companies/contacts which were imported. (See below)

From release 1.00.23.220 (or later) it is possible to import 'A/C Manager' (i.e. Consultant 'owner' for the company)

Contents  (Click an Item to Jump to that section)

• VIDEO GUIDE
• How it Works
  • Confirmation of Completion
  • Important considerations when using the Import Tool
• Automatic Creation of Groups

VIDEO GUIDE

Below is a video, which can be used to accompany these notes. We strongly suggest you READ THE GUIDE, and use it in conjunction with the video.

https://screenpal.com/watch/c0QViPVpLdX

How it Works

1) Login to the database as the user "ADM" (or your own login if you have access to the [Maintenance] part of the system)

2) Choose Maintenance > Tools > Client/Contact import from Excel

3) Once the client import screen opens, click the [New] button at the bottom left to open an Excel template for you to use.
The template will have the column headings you can use,  e.g.

FORENAME  SURNAME  JOB TITLE  ORGANISATION   EMAIL   TELEPHONE   MOBILE .....etc

If you are using the spreadsheet to import contacts then you must specify a Forename/Surname in addition to any company information.

4) Copy/Paste the information from your excel sheet into the template under the correct column heading(s). When done, save the template using Save As....  and save the file as an MS Excel 97-2003 type sheet. (i.e. *.xls)

5) Before importing create a "Test" spreadsheet by re-saving the first 2-3 lines only (Including Headings) as a separate file, e.g Test.xls You can then import that TEST file first, just to make sure things work properly - it's MUCH easier to tidy-up if they don't than if you import 2000+ rows of data and then find out it's wrong.

6) From the Influence Client/Contact import from Excel, click the [Next] button. A window will appear asking for the spreadsheet containing the information to be imported.

Simply Drag/Drop the "Test" spreadsheet that you saved in step (5) onto the window, and press [OK]. The system will then import the contacts into your database.

7) Ensure the information has import correctly from the test spreadsheet. When satisfied repeat step 6 with the full spreadsheet.

Confirmation of Completion

After completing an upload from Excel, the system will display a 'Confirmation' window explaining what was imported/loaded.

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Important considerations when using the Import Tool

A) If a company already exists, then it will not be added again if  the name in the import spreadsheet is identical. If any part is different (Including CASE), then the import will add a new company.  (For example  ABC Co Ltd  is different to Abc Co Ltd, and thus a new record would be imported/created. )

Ai) As a result of the above, if your import data contains two different organisations, with different addresses, but the same name (ORGANISATION) then the import will create only ONE company, and all contacts at the firm with this name will be added to this ONE company/organisation.
e.g.
Woodland School, 28 Bromley Road, Bromley Kent, BR2 5LJ   John Jones, Maths Teacher.
 Woodland School, 71 Harbour Street, Christchurch, Hants, BN11 2DW    Martin Lovell, Science Teacher.

This example will create ONE organisation called Woodland School, even though they are both at different addresses.

B) It is possible to load "Branches" by indicating the branch in brackets, i.e. (xxxxx)
e.g. Importing a spreadsheet with
ABC Tools Ltd (Leeds)  and also
ABC Tools Ltd (Bristol)     would create a single client called ABC Tools Ltd, with two branches. (Leeds & Bristol)

C) If you import a client only, with no contact (i.e. Forename/Surname are left ) then the email field will only store the domain part of the email.
i.e . [email protected] would be stored simply as  @XYX-Products.com.  

If you wish to store the whole email address you must specify a contact.

D) When using the excel import template to upload fields such as 'Status', the code must be entered instead of the description, i.e. 'ACT' instead of 'Active'

E) If data is imported incorrectly it will need to be removed form the database before re-importing. If it is not removed then any future imports will be treated as duplicates and will not be imported.

F) TEST IT !

It is good practice to test the import routine first. For example, if you wish to import 2000 client records, we would suggest that your run an import using just the first 2 or 3 lines of your spreadsheet to start with - then if that works as intended, proceed to import the rest. If you have made  mistake with your data, this will make it much easier to undo before importing the bulk of your data.

G) File Size  (Number of records)
If you have a large spreadsheet please bear in mind that this may take a long time to process, depending on the speed of your connection, load on the server, etc.

 H) If importing NOTES, then for instances of multiple contacts at the same site, the NOTES from the first contact will be used as the Profile notes for the site, and NOTES from subsequent contacts will be stored on the contact only (not the client).

 I) If importing email addresses, the system will strip any trailing non-alpha characters to help make sure emails are valid.

(Feature implemented from v1.00.24.254 or later)

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Automatic Creation of Groups

From version 1.00.18.157 or later, whenever an import is run the system will automatically create a GROUP containing the details of any companies/Contacts which were added during the import.

The name of the group will be of the format Import dd/mm/yyyy as shown above.
This makes it much easier to remove or delete these records should there be any need to undo the import.

EXAMPLE:

If an import were run on 18/03/2024, and 27 records were imported, it would be possible to see those 27 records by selecting the group called Import 18/03/2024 at the left of the workbench.

To 'remove' all of those records, you could choose the PROPERTIES for the Group called Import 18/03/2024 and then use 'Set Values' to set the status to 'DEL' for all 27 members of the GROUP. They could then be totally removed from the system by using the option Delete Records by Status.

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