Importing Contacts

Importing contacts allows you to add entire groups of contacts to Community Connect using a simple XLS (MS Excel) spreadsheet.


exported contacts Excel spreadsheet



Your contacts will be placed into a new contact group that matches the name of the imported spreadsheet file. Note that you must have a channel connected to your account to import contacts. To import contacts, simply import an XLS spreadsheet containing:

  • Address columns corresponding to the addresses each contact may contain (a Phone column containing each contact's phone number in E164 format; and/or a Telegram column containing each contact's Telegram identifier; and/or a Twitter column containing each contact's Twitter handle; and/or an Email column containing each contact's email address). Once imported, Community Connect will display your contacts' phone numbers without the country code prefix.

  • A Name column that contains the first and last name of each contact.

  • (Conditional) A UUID column containing the universally unique identifier for each contact you import. This column may replace the Name column, and is necessary when importing a spreadsheet with the intention of adding a new address or address type to your contacts.

  • (Optional) A Language column representing each contacts' preferred language that contains the ISO 639-2/B standardized nomenclature to classify the languages you're including.

  • (Optional) Any number of additional columns corresponding with custom attributes* (contact fields) containing contact field values. Note that column names are limited to 36 characters, don't support special characters, and may not start with a number.

*Note that when importing a date value into Community Connect without a time value, Community Connect will assign the date a time value of 00:00 (12 AM):


Additionally, when manually adding only a date value to a contact field, Community Connect will replace the corresponding time value with the time at which you updated the field.


import contacts from an XLS file


To import contacts:


1. Navigate to the contacts tab.


2. Click the "Import Contacts" button.


import contacts button


3. Download and edit the template we provide (or choose a your own file) and upload it using the "Choose File" button.


4. Confirm any custom fields present in your import spreadsheet and choose each field's value type: Text, Numeric, or Date & Time. Make sure to check the boxe(s) corresponding to the fields you wish to import:


adding new custom fields



Importing Address Types

Contacts can be imported with multiple address types, but only one address for each type: 


imported contacts



Contact addresses can be added via an import, so long as the UUID column contains the UUID(s) of the contact(s). Contact UUIDs can be obtained by exporting your contacts or using List Contacts request in the API Explorer: 


API explorer - list contacts



Exporting Contacts

Contact exports will contain your contacts' UUIDs, Names, Addresses, and Custom Contact Fields. To export your contacts, simply navigate to the contact tab and select the "Export" option from the gear icon drop-down menu:


Export Contacts link