Importing Contacts Assigned to Organizations

Our import plugins require an organization’s ID number when importing a contact that is to be assigned to that organization. We do this because any lookups on the organization’s name would have to match exactly to the organization that is in the CRM in order for it to import correctly. This can become problematic, especially if there are several organizations with the same name. 

In order to assign a contact to an existing organization when importing, you will need to know the organization’s WP-CRM System ID number in advance.

Manually Retrieve Organization’s ID #

When editing an organization’s record in WP-CRM System, look up on your browser’s address bar. There will be a number after post=, which will indicate the organization’s ID number. Insert this number into your contact’s CSV import file to assign the contact to this organization.

Get Organization’s ID in bulk #

The method above is fine if you have only a handful of organizations. But what if you have dozens or hundreds of contacts that can be attached to any number of organizations. One of our awesome customers created a spreadsheet that will do all of the heavy lifting for you. Here are the steps to get organization IDs in bulk.

1. Make sure all organizations you need to assign a contact to are imported, or otherwise created in WP-CRM System
2. Export all organizations using the Organization Import/Export option.
3. The export file will contain an ID number for each organization.
4. Open this spreadsheet, and make a copy for your own use. There are three tabs. The first tab simply contains a list of the organization’s names and ID numbers from the export file you just created. The second is a list of contacts to be imported with the organization’s name (not ID). The third is the importable version of your contacts, where the organization’s names have been replaced with their ID numbers.
5. On the first tab, copy and paste the organization’s names and ID numbers from the export file you just created into the correct columns.
6. On the second tab enter the contact’s names and the organizations they belong to, just like how they are listed on the sample provided.
7. The third tab should have the same list of contacts from the second tab (they should come in automatically), and instead of the organization’s name, there will be the correct ID numbers listed.

If an organization’s name was typed incorrectly on the second tab or if it was left out entirely there will be a red error “No Organization Found” notice instead of the organization’s ID number on the third tab. This can help visually identify any issues that will prevent the contacts from being assigned to the correct organization when importing. Hopefully, you can correct those errors before you import. 

Finally, you will need to create the import file for your contacts. 

On the third tab, finish filling in the rest of the contact’s information (street address, phone, email, etc.). Make sure there are no errors noted in the Organization ID column. When you are sure that everything is how you want it to be, make sure you are currently viewing the third tab. Then, click File, select Download As, and then select Comma Separated Values (CSV, current sheet). 

This will allow you to download a CSV file in the proper format that is ready to be imported into your WP-CRM System.