Tidy a contact list and import it into Zoho CRM

You keep contacts somewhere that is not Zoho CRM — an export from an old system, a spreadsheet someone kept for years, a sign-up list from an event — and you want them in Zoho CRM as proper contacts. The list is never quite in the shape an import wants: one column holds whole names, the phone numbers are written six ways, and the same person is on it twice.

In this recipe the agent does the tidying in a XataWorks spreadsheet while you watch, and hands you a .csv file ready for Zoho CRM’s own import.

What you need

• XataWorks, open, with the agent answering. If it is not yet, Getting started covers the one decision to make first.
• Your list, as an Excel workbook (.xlsx or .xlsm) or a .csv file, up to 20 MB.
• A Zoho CRM account that can import contacts.

1. Bring the list in

Attach the file to a chat and ask the agent to bring it in as a new spreadsheet. Or do it yourself: choose File ▸ New ▸ Spreadsheet, then Import… beside New spreadsheet. Either way it opens in the chat’s browser panel, beside the conversation.

If anything in a workbook could not come across — charts, comments, conditional formatting — a note above the grid says so. Contact lists rarely carry any of that, and the cells themselves always arrive.

2. Ask for the tidying, one job at a time

Each request lands as one change, with Undo above the grid, so small requests are easy to check and easy to take back. Things worth asking for:

• “Split the Name column into First Name and Last Name.”
• “Write every phone number the same way, with the country code.”
• “Find rows with the same email address and tell me which ones they are.” Read the answer before you ask for anything to be removed.
• “Delete the duplicate rows you found.” Deleting rows asks you every time, whatever you allowed before.
• “Which rows have no last name?” Zoho CRM needs a last name for every contact, so fill these in or take them out before you import.

On a long list the agent works in parts: it reads or formats at most 10,000 cells at a time.

3. Name the columns the way Zoho names its fields

Ask the agent to rename the headings to Zoho CRM’s own field names — First Name, Last Name, Email, Phone, Mobile, Title, Account Name — and to remove columns you do not want to bring across. Zoho CRM’s import asks you to match each column to one of its fields; headings that already carry the field’s name make that step a matter of checking rather than choosing.

4. Export it as a CSV file

Ask the agent to export the sheet as a .csv file, or choose ⋯ ▸ Export… and then This sheet as CSV (.csv). The agent saves its export in your Downloads folder; the menu asks where to save, and the spreadsheet then says “Saved to …” with the file’s place. Exporting counts as a change, so the first export may ask.

Keep the spreadsheet. If the import turns something up, you fix it here and export again.

5. Check who is already in Zoho CRM

With Zoho CRM open and signed in beside the chat, ask before you import:

For each email in this sheet, check whether Zoho CRM already has a lead or contact with it, and add a column saying which.

The agent searches CRM by email, which only reads and never asks. Take the people CRM already has out of the sheet, or update their records in CRM instead, and export again.

6. Import it into Zoho CRM

In Zoho CRM, go to Contacts and use its import. Choose the file you exported, check how each column is matched to a field, and finish the import there. That step is Zoho’s, and its own screens walk you through it.

Where this recipe stops

• The import is Zoho’s. The agent can search Zoho CRM, read records and make single, confirmed changes, but it doesn’t create records in bulk. The file goes in through Zoho CRM’s own import.
• Your contacts stay with you until you upload them. The spreadsheet and the exported file stay on your computer, and checking CRM only reads it.
• Duplicates already in CRM are a job of their own: Clean up duplicates in Zoho CRM.

Read more

• Spreadsheets — importing, the editor, exporting, and everything the agent can do in a sheet.
• Approvals and permissions — what each answer to a question commits you to.