Settings and data
Import leads from a spreadsheet
Load a list of prospects - from an exhibition, a purchased list or an old system - map its columns to lead fields, skip duplicates and add the leads to a campaign.
3 min readLast updated
In this article
The lead import turns a spreadsheet of names and phone numbers into leads your reps can work. You do not need to rename your columns: you tell the screen which column holds what.
Before you start
Use Excel (.xlsx) for Arabic data. Plain CSV files saved from Excel can corrupt Arabic letters. The file can be up to 10 MB.
If you want the leads assigned to reps or added to a campaign, note the users' IDs and the campaign's ID. View valid values on the screen lists the accepted values.
Import
Open CRM › Settings & Data › Import Leads.
Select Download template if you are building the file from scratch, or use your own file.
Select Choose file and pick the file. The screen reads its header row and shows Map columns.
For each column in your file, choose the lead field it holds, or — skip — to ignore it. The fields are Company Name, Contact Person, Email, Phone, Mobile, Website, Source, Status, Industry, Address, City, State / Governorate, Country, Notes, Assigned To (user ID) and Campaign (ID).
Map at least Company Name, Address and a phone column (Phone or Mobile). Until you do, the screen lists what is still unmapped, and Upload stays disabled.
Select Upload.
What the import does with each row
Required data: a row without a company name, an address or a phone number is refused.
Duplicates: a row whose e-mail already belongs to a lead is skipped; without an e-mail, the phone number is checked instead. The reason says which.
Location: country, state and city are taken from the mapped columns, or detected from the address text. A row is never refused because the place is not recognised.
Source and industry: the text is matched to your pick lists. A value that is not in the list is added to it.
Owner: an Assigned To (user ID) that is not a user of your company refuses the row.
Campaign: with Campaign (ID) mapped, each new lead is added to that campaign as a member.
New leads start with the status New.
Read the result
The screen shows how many rows were imported and how many failed, with the Row, Row data and Reason of each failure. The imported rows are saved; fix the failed ones and upload only those again.
Common questions
Why does the screen say it couldn't read a header row? The first row of the sheet must hold the column titles. Remove empty rows or titles above them and choose the file again.
Can I import leads for several reps at once? Yes. Put each rep's user ID in the column mapped to Assigned To (user ID), or import first and then assign them in bulk from the leads list.