Importing Activities

Prepare the file for import

ContactDrive allows you to not only import all of your contacts, but any activities your contacts may create. We define activities as "things people do." This could include filling out a form on your website, making a donation, attending an event, a phone call, text message, email...you get the idea.

In order to import your contact's activities, first prepare your file for import. There are three columns required in order to ensure the data imports correctly:

1. Activity Date: pretty self explanatory, this is the date the activity took place
2. Activity Type: this is a verb that must match one of the activity types in your workspace (e.g. a specific action, transaction, email, etc.). Note that you can create custom activity types within your Workspace Settings.
3. Action Taken: A more descriptive phrase about this activity. It will appear on your dashboard's activity feed after the contact's name. For example, "filled out a form" or "made a donation."

Note: for activity type and action taken, be sure to take advantage of Excel's autofill feature to quickly complete these columns for all of the rows.

Export file as CSV

Be sure your file is saved on your computer as a CSV file as that is the only file type ContactDrive recognizes. It will not accept Excel, Numbers, Google Sheet, tabular, blockchain, or manila file folders.

Custom Fields

Now that the file is organized, you'll want to ensure the activities find their way into the proper place within your ContactDrive Workspace.

Using Custom Fields, you can store any activity related data that you want to store from your import. This will include data such as transaction amount, event ticket type, if a thank you note was sent for the donation, event name, etc. When you create custom fields, the data type is always set to "Activity."

Have some activity data in your spreadsheet you don't necessarily need to track of but want to keep it in associated with that contact? No problem. Later in the import process (keep reading below) simply map them to "Activity Data Field" and they will be saved with that activity.

The only hitch in the giddy-up with not mapping them to a specific data field is that you will not be able to filter for this info. For example, several contacts have made donations and your spreadsheet contains each person's confirmation numbers for their specific donation. You want to keep the confirmation numbers (map them as "Activity Data Field") but you won't be able to filter by confirmation numbers.

Import File into ContactDrive

Once you have added the required activity columns to your data file and any custom fields you want to capture to your Workspace, go to the activity page in ContactDrive. Click the blue down arrow next to the Activity button, and click "Import CSV."

Drag and drop the file onto the page from where it is stored on your computer or browse for it and click to import. ContactDrive will do its best to predict which of your spreadsheet columns map into the data fields but be sure to verify before importing. This action cannot be undone, so check twice before clicking that blue button.

In order to match activity with an existing contact, you must include at least one identifying field from the contact. This could include:

• ContactDrive ID - each contact in our system is assigned a unique ContactDrive ID, which is included in all exports. If you exported a list from your Workspace of people who had RSVP'd for an event, then went to import the activity of those attendees, the CDID will match the activity to the person.
• Unique ID (Custom Field) - If you have set up a custom field and set it up as a Unique ID, when you import contacts with that ID and it is mapped to the custom field, any activity will be matched to the correct contact.
• Email address
• Name and phone number - especially for SMS campaign activity imports, be sure to include both the contact's name and phone number as ContactDrive does not match activity on phone number alone.

Finish it up

Finally, before you can tie this import up with a bow, there is one import option to consider. Activity imports that apply ONLY to contacts already in your Workspace, toggle off the import option "Add New Contacts."

After finishing your import, it will go into the queue for processing. Please be patient, depending on the size of the import, this could take a few minutes. You can check the status in the File Log, but clicking "Import History" at the top right of the screen.

Once completed, the activity imported can be seen on the Activity homepage and on the Dashboard if you have enabled the app.