Importing Your Contacts
As a non-administrator, you can import up to 2,000 contacts at a time from a comma-separated value (.csv) file to use with Siebel CRM On Demand. When you import contacts, you specify how you want the application to handle duplicate records.
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NOTE: Administrators can import up to 30,000 contact records, with a maximum file size of 9 MB, at a time.
Before you begin. If several employees at your company are importing contacts, coordinate the importing effort to minimize record duplication. Also, prepare your file for importing to make sure you capture all the data in the file.
CAUTION: You cannot undo the importing of records or perform a mass deletion of records. Therefore, practice the importing procedure with a file of 5-10 records to avoid cleaning up data afterwards. If your company is importing a large number of records, attend a training session on data importing or contact Customer Care. For information on those resources, click the Training and Customer Care links at the top of each page within Siebel CRM On Demand.
To import your contacts
- Click the Contacts tab.
- In the Recently Modified Contacts title bar, click the Import button.
NOTE: If the Recently Modified Contacts section is not visible on your Contacts Homepage, click the Edit Layout link in the upper right corner of the page, and add the Recently Modified Contacts section to your page layout.
- On the Data and Integration Tools page, click the Import Your Contacts link.
This starts the Import wizard.
- For Step 1:
- Select how you want the Import wizard to identify matching records.
The Import wizard uses an external unique ID, which is a unique external ID field that is imported from another system. The Import Wizard also uses CRM On Demand pre-defined fields. These are non-ID fields, such as Account Name and Location.
For information on how duplicate records are defined, see About Record Duplicates and External IDs.
- Select what you want the Import wizard to do if it finds a duplicate unique record identifier in CRM On Demand. Your choices are: not to import duplicate records, to overwrite existing records, or to create additional records.
- Select the action you want the Import Wizard to follow if the imported record's unique record identifier does not match an existing record in CRM On Demand.
NOTE: If you select Overwrite Records and Don't Create New Record in the previous option, this results in the record being updated.
- Select how you want to handle picklist values in your CSV file that do not match the values in the application.
The Import wizard can either add the new value to the picklist or will not import the field value.
NOTE: This is not available if the user's language is different than the company's default language.
- Decide if the Import Wizard should create a new record for missing associations (related records) in your data file.
- Select the date/time format used in the CSV file.
For more information, see Field Type Guidelines for Importing Data.
- Verify that the file encoding selection is Western.
NOTE: You should not change this unless you are certain another encoding method is used. The default, Western, applies to most encoding systems in Europe and North America.
- Select the type of CSV delimiter used in your file: comma or semi-colon.
- Select the CSV file whose data you want to import.
- For Step 2:
- Follow the instructions for validating your file, if necessary.
- Select a field mapping file, if available.
Field mapping files (.map) contain the pairing of fields in your CSV file with existing Siebel CRM On Demand fields. After you perform an import, the system sends you an email containing the .map file with the recent mapping scheme. Save it to your computer to re-use it during later imports.
- For Step 3:
- Map the fields in your file to Siebel CRM On Demand fields. At a minimum, you need to map all required fields to column headers in the CSV file.
- The Import Assistant lists the column headers from your import CSV file next to a drop-down list showing all the fields in that area in Siebel CRM On Demand, including custom fields you added.
If the address field you need does not appear in the drop-down list, select the corresponding one shown in this table.
To filter your list on this field
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Select this field from the drop-down list
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Street Number Address 1 Chome
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Number/Street
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Ku
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Address 2
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Floor District
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Address 3
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Shi/Gun
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City
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Colonia/Section CEDEX Code Address 4 URB Township
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PO Box/Sorting Code
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MEX State BRA State Parish Part of Territory Island Prefecture Region Emirate Oblast
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Province
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Island Code Boite Postale Codigo Postal
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Zip/Post Code
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- If you selected a .map file, verify that the fields map correctly. Custom fields created since you ran the previous import might need to be mapped.
- For information about external IDs, see About Record Duplicates and External IDs.
CAUTION: If you have selected the wrong file to import, click Cancel to change selections. At this point, using the Back button does not clear the cache, so the import file you originally selected appears in the field mapping step.
CAUTION: External Unique ID and Manager External ID are key fields that are used to associate Contacts with their Manager Records. If these fields are not mapped, the Manager Record will be associated with Contacts using the Contact Name and Manager fields. When using the Contact Name and Manager fields to do this association, the data file records will be subject to more stringent dependency ordering.
- For Step 4, follow the onscreen instructions, if necessary.
- For Step 5, click Finish.
Import Errors and Warning Messages
To view the queue for your import requests
- Click the Contacts tab.
- In the Recently Modified Contacts title bar, click the Import button.
- On the Data and Integration Tools page, click the Import Request Queue link.
The Import Request Queue page appears with information about your requests, including the estimated time of completion.
The following table describes the import status.
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Completed
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The import completed with no errors during import.
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Completed with errors
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The import completed but there were some errors with some of the records.
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Failed
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The import completed but none of the records were imported.
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Error
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The import did not complete because an error occurred.
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The following table describes the import record information.
Import Record Information
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Description
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# Submitted
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The number of records contained in the CSV file.
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# Processed
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The number of records the import engine has currently processed. This field is processed every 20 seconds, or as set by a system process.
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# Successfully Imported
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The number of records that were imported without any problems.
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# Partially Imported
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The number of records that were imported. Not all records were imported.
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# Not imported
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The number of records that were not imported at all.
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