Customer Import Instructions

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If you have a long list of customers that you need to add to Agile in order to sell them a particular package or event, there's no need to enter them one-by-one into the system. Agile can import hundreds of customers or more at a time. Follow the steps below to learn how to import customers into the system.

Pro Tip: Avoid major headaches by saving a copy of your Import Results File to your computer. This file will contain exact Customer Numbers that will be generated for your shows. If you ever notice an issue with your customer information, you can mass-update them by following the import process and loading your Results spreadsheet instead of your original import file.

1. Log in to Administration.

2. Select the House icon.  

3. Open the Customer Relations folder and select the Import button.

4. Select the Import Example button at the bottom of the screen.

5. A pop-up window will appear. Save the Customer Import Example spreadsheet to your computer. 

6. Open the Customer Import Example spreadsheet and fill in the information under each column.

Note: Not all columns must be filled out for the import. Those that are optional are marked in the header.

You must put information into the Required fields in order to successfully import your list. The Required fields are First Name, Last Name, Address Line 1, City, State, Zip, and Country. If possible, we also recommend filling out the Email field even though it is technically optional, as this will make it easier to contact these customers after they've been imported.

Once you've input this information, Save and Close the spreadsheet. 

Note: If you plan on importing a company or business into Agile as a customer record, there are some special considerations you need to make:

• Do you need the Business itself AND the person serving as its Contact to have separate records in Agile? If yes, then you will enter them together as one row onto the spreadsheet. Use the Contact's First Name, Last Name, and other information. Enter the Business's name into the Company Name column of that row. After the import, Agile will create the Business and Contact as separate records in the system. These records will be connected via a Customer Relationship so that when you search for one, Agile will present the other record as well.

• Do you need to associate multiple Contact records with the Business record? If yes, then you will fill out a row for each Contact on the spreadsheet and make sure they all share the same Company Name. These rows must be directly next to each other on the spreadsheet. If you split them up or enter them in separate imports, then Agile may create one or more duplicate records for the Business, which will make it harder to keep track of later on.

• Do you need just one record for the Business itself in Agile, without any other related Contact records? If yes, then the Business's information should be entered as one row onto the spreadsheet with the Business name entered into the Last Name column.

7. Go back into Administration, open up the Customer folder, and click Customer Import. 

Note: the Ignore header row during file import is checked by default. Keep this checked in order to successfully import your spreadsheet.

8. Check the box next to Add Batch Label to Customers and type the label into the field provided. Batch labels aren't necessary, but we recommend using them for two reasons:

• If a batch label exists, you can input it into the parameters of the "Customers - Imported" data set in the Emails & Letters tool. This lets you create an email or letter to communicate specifically with this batch of imported customers.
• The batch label will be added to each customer records created by this import. This makes it easier to identify imported versus manually created customer records later on, in case any unforeseen issues arise.

9. Click the Load File button and choose your completed spreadsheet.

10. All your customer information will appear within the Import window. We recommend scrolling through the loaded data to check for any errors before proceeding.

Note: If you do see any errors you can make the necessary correction on the Customer Import page. Simply click the cell that needs to be changed and type to correct it.

11. Once everything is correct, click the Import button in the bottom-right corner.  

12. The progress pop-up window will appear. Once the Progress bar reaches 100%, the process is finished and you can review the results of the import (how many total records were created, whether or not there were any errors, etc.).

13. Also once the Progress bar reaches 100%, the Save Import Results pop-up will appear. It is very important that you save the Results spreadsheet for your records. If an error with the initial import sheet or the created records is identified later down the line, the Results spreadsheet can be used to review the information that was originally imported to help find the mistake. In many cases, editing and importing the Results spreadsheet may be enough to fix the error. If you ever run into that sort of situation, please reach out to our support representatives for assistance.

14. Once the import is complete, you will be able to look up the Customer records you just imported.