Importing your data

Bring contacts, organisations, members or price book items into Prevarro from a CSV, TSV or Excel (.xlsx) file, check what will change, and undo an import if you need to.

This article is being updated.

If your customers, members or products already live in a spreadsheet or another system, you don't need to retype them. Save them as a CSV file or an Excel workbook (.xlsx) and import them. Prevarro shows you what will change before anything is written.

Where to start

You can import contacts, organisations, members and price book products. Start from any of these places:

Contacts - open the More actions menu (⋯) at the top of the list and choose Import. On the Organisations tab, the same menu imports organisations.
Members - the same More actions menu on the roster, if your business uses Members.
Price Book - the same More actions menu beside New product imports products.
Settings → Data → Imports - choose Import, then pick what you're importing under What are you importing?
The checklist on Home - "Add your customers" or "Add your members & clients" takes you straight in.

You'll only be offered the kinds of records your role lets you add.

The five steps

The import takes over the whole screen and shows your progress through Upload, Map, Validate, Preview and Commit.

Upload. Drop in your file or choose it. CSV, TSV and Excel workbook (.xlsx) files are accepted, and the screen shows the size and row limits. From a workbook, Prevarro reads the first sheet only, and each cell as it was last saved: a formula brings in its result, never the formula. Macro-enabled workbooks (.xlsm) and the old Excel format (.xls) are not accepted; save them as .xlsx or CSV first. Leave First row is column headers ticked if your first row holds column names. Not sure how to lay out your file? Choose Download a template for a CSV whose column headings are the fields Prevarro can import. Fill it in and it maps itself at the next step. For contacts, Add one by hand is there too if you only have a few.
Map. Match each column in your file to a field in Prevarro. Columns whose names match are filled in for you. A suggested field is worth checking before you continue. Columns you don't map are listed under Not imported. Here you also choose what happens when a row matches an existing record: Update existing or Skip. The screen says what counts as a match, such as email for contacts, or the name within the price book for products. If you update, choose Overwrite mapped fields to replace what's stored with your file's values (an empty cell leaves the stored value alone), or Fill blanks only to fill in only what's missing. For products, also pick the Price book they go into.
Validate. Prevarro checks every row. Problems are grouped by field, each with a count and an example, so one bad column shows up as one problem. Choose Back to map to fix the mapping, or Continue to preview.
Preview. Four tiles show how many rows will be created, updated, skipped as duplicates or left behind with errors. Select a tile to see those rows. Choose Download error rows to get the failed rows with the reason for each.
Commit. The Commit button says exactly what it will do. Good rows are written and rows with errors are left behind, so you can fix and import them separately.

If you leave partway through, your upload is kept for seven days. Come back to it from Settings → Data → Imports and choose Resume.

Welcoming imported members

If your business's member portal is turned on, a finished members import offers Send portal welcome to the number of imported members. Choose it to email a sign-in link for the member portal to each member the import created who has an email address the portal can use. Members it can't send to are listed after Not sent to, with the reason: their email address bounced, or they have no address the portal can use. Select a name to open their record and correct it, then send their welcome from the import. Choosing it again never sends anyone a second welcome. Once they've all been sent, the screen reads Portal welcome sent to that number of members instead.

Checking and undoing an import

Every import is listed under Settings → Data → Imports, with its file name, date and counts.

Revert removes the records the import created, as long as nobody has edited them and nothing else depends on them. Anything else stays, and Prevarro tells you so before you confirm. If some records are kept, the import reads Partially reverted. Choose View retained rows to see which ones and why.
If a commit stops partway, the import reads Commit failed after a number of rows. Choose Retry to carry on from where it stopped. Rows already written stay as they are.