Creating a CSV file

Many applications in which you have contacts stored can easily save the data out to a CSV format. The resulting file will contain your data in the order determined by the application, separated by commas (comma separated values = CSV).

The easiest way to edit or create a CSV file is using Excel. When saving your CSV file from Excel, choose File, Save AS and select the .CSV format (towards the bottom of the available formats list). If using Excel, only the data on the first worksheet will be saved to your CSV file, so don’t set your data out on many worksheets. 

A basic csv file

We recommend that your CSV file contain the following information as a bare minimum.

• Each record must have either an email address or mobile phone number

• We highly recommend that you include the firstname and surname of each contact, to help you more easily select contacts for your campaigns and personalise your messages

• Including at least one category for each contact you upload is highly encouraged; it makes it easier for you to attach this set of contacts to your campaigns.

Preparing your CSV file for import into Enudge 

There are just a few things you need to be careful of to ensure that your data ends up in the right place after your upload: 

Remove the heading row

Removing the heading row will avoid an error report for an invalid email address / mobile number for the first (heading) row.

Remove commas 

Because a CSV (comma separated values) file separates information using a comma, you can’t use a comma inside a value (i.e. cell, if you are using Excel to create your CSV file). For example, if the street value is “Level 1, 105 Walker Street” then you need to remove the comma otherwise “Level 1” will be treated as the street, and “105 Walker Street” will be treated as the next field value, and so on… shifting each field along one which will create havoc in your upload, or cause that record to fail.

Remove any empty columns 

Do not leave any empty columns in your CSV file as this will cause your information to end up in the wrong Enudge fields; remove the whole column instead.

Remove any carriage returns / line feeds / new line breaks 

A new line break left inside a value in your CSV file will cause the information after the line break to be treated as a new contact record (new row in your spreadsheet), and likely produce errors in the contact creation. 

Remove any empty rows 

Empty rows will result in errors when you upload your contacts. 

Year of birth

If you supply the year of birth for your contacts, it must be a four digit number.

Gender

If you supply a gender for your contacts, enter either m or f for a particular contact.

HTML format

If you supply a value of HTML format for your contacts, it must be either yes (meaning send in HTML) or no (meaning send in text format). Note: It is not necessary for you to supply this value if you wish to send HTML emails to all your contacts. If not provided, your contacts will be automatically set to receive HTML format emails.

Add a Category to your Contacts

Adding one or more categories to your contacts as you upload them makes it super quick to attach your contacts to a particular campaign later.  To add a category, simply put the name of the category in a separate column. You can add up to 5 categories during an upload, and Enudge will create the category as you upload, if it doesn’t already exist.

Uploading your Contacts CSV File 

Once you have prepared your CSV file and are ready to upload your contacts, choose Contacts from the main navigation, then choose Upload Contacts, and browse to find your file.  After uploading your CSV file you will then need to re-arrange the field names to match the order those fields are found your file. Lastly press the ‘Process Field Order’ button to add the contacts into your Enudge account.

For more information, read the article re: Uploading your Contacts via a CSV file.