Importing a Text File into Addressinator!

This section will identify three major items of importing a text file into Addressinator!

Required format of .csv (Comma Separated Values) text file for use with Addressinator!:

2.	Each field must be Quoted (surrounded by quotation characters)

3.	Every line must contain at minimum the first 11 fields (from Title through Zip), even if non used or empty the fields must be present, i.e. if no middle name, there still must be a ""

4.	Duplicate contacts will not be imported if exact duplicate (see below for details)

5.	Fields that exceed the length in Addressinator! will be truncated.

6.	The csv file must not contain field names in the first row or any header or footer, data only.

7.	Last name is required. If a Last name is not included, it will default to the GUID of the internal record

8.	The csv file must contain the following fields in following order:

"Title","FirstName","MiddleName","LastName","Suffix.","Company","Street","Box","City","State","Zip","Country","Memo","Custom0(WorkPhone)","Custom1(HomePhone)","Custom2(CellPhone)","Custom3(Fax)","Custom4(Email)","Custom5(Pager)","Custom6(WebSite)","Custom7(Position)","Custom8(Extension)","Custom9(Birthday)","Custom10(True)","Custom11(Number)","Custom12(currency)","Custom13(text1)","Custom14(text2)","Custom15(text3)","Custom16(text4)","Custom17(text5)","Custom18(prompt)","Custom19(text6)"

Of course what your labels in your copy of Addressinator may be different because you may have customized the label for the field. Do refer to the screenshots below to be sure of the order

Contact records will not be imported if the contact is an exact duplicate of an existing contact in the Addressinator! database. The fields that are compared against are:

For example, if you already have a contact in the Addressinator! database that is

The contact Robert will be imported, because Bob is not a duplicate of Robert even though the last name, company, and address information is exactly the same. This makes it easy to import company personnel records.

•	It is suggested that you first export from Addressinator! as per the instructions in the previous section so that you can see how the text file is to be formatted - open using NotePad.

•	Backup your current Addressinator! database before importing, there is no undo feature and it's easy to accidentally have a field in the wrong position as the import utility has no way of confirming if a phone number (for example) is in the email address column.

•	When you open the csv file using Notepad before importing, carefully examine the grid of records displayed to ensure each field is in the correct column before importing.

•	For better performance when importing a large number of contacts, do the import from the fastest connection to the database possible, i.e. if on a network, perform the import on the same computer where the database is

•	Duplicate contacts will not be imported, the contact name is examined before each contact is imported. If the contact name is found to be in Addressinator! already then that record is not imported. This means you can re-import the same data safely without getting duplicate records.

•	After importing, select the Group created (will be named with today's date and time of the import) so that you can examine the imported contacts and ensure fields were imported to the correct area of the client record.

•	If you determined there are a large number of mistakes in your import, you will want to restore from the backup you made prior to importing, fix your import file, and than import again - or select the Group, and select to Delete all contacts of that group.

NOTE: Do not use Microsoft Excel to create or edit CSV files as Excel may cause errors and be unable to be imported.

A CSV file created or saved by Excel will 99% of the time cause an error to occur as it will not include quotes, sometimes will not make allowances for empty fields, may misinterpret returns or comma’s in the field as being a separate field.

If you presently have an Excel file that is correctly formatted for the number of fields and placement of fields – once that is completed, than it is suggested and recommended to import it into a table in Microsoft Access. Right click on the table, select Export…, select CSV from the drop down list and the CSV file will be created correctly with quotes and commas.

If you do not have Microsoft Access, we would be happy to do this for you. Once you have correctly formatted the CSV file using Excel, you can zip it up using WinZip and send it to us asking if we would import/export it into Access to get the final CSV format correct after you have correctly ordered the columns, number of columns etc.

NOTE: It is always recommended to create a backup before importing any new contacts in case there is a formatting problem with your import file and you need to restore

1.	Open Addressinator! by double-clicking on the Addressinator! icon on your desktop

b.	Browse to the location of your text file that matches the required format outlined above and select it

3.	All records in the text file will be automatically imported into a group named with today's date and time. Refer to the tutorial How to Create, Edit and Delete a Group on how to rename this group if needed.