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Introduction:
Rather than adding users manually, HappyFox allows you to bulk-import contacts using a CSV or XLS file. This feature is available on all subscription plans and is the most efficient way to manage large customer databases.
Capabilities
- Add New Contacts: Populate your help desk with new customer data quickly.
- Bulk Edit: Update details for existing users in one go.
- Organization Management: Assign contacts to new organizations or replace existing ones.
Note: Access to Contact Import
This permission can be assigned using Roles and Permissions. Agents with the Manage Agents permission can grant the Import Contacts permission to other agents.
To help with the transition, until April 7, 2026, both the Account Administrator and users with this permission can import contacts. After that, this permission will be required for all users, including the Account Administrator.
Data Preparation & Formatting
Before uploading, ensure your spreadsheet is formatted correctly. The system skips the first row (headers) and begins importing from the second row.
Mandatory fields:
| Field Name | Accepted Headers | Notes |
| Name | Name, name, NAME |
Must be a single column. Combine "First" and "Last" names into one. |
Email, e-mail, EMAIL |
Primary identifier for the contact. | |
| Phone |
Phone, phone, PHONE |
Include country codes (e.g., +1, +91 ) if different from your account's default country. |
- These are mandatory fields and are not case sensitive. The column heading for name, email and phone can be the following format:name: 'Name','name','NAME'
- HappyFox accepts name as a single field and NOT as two fields (Not as first name and last name). So if your data contains contact name in two columns, combine them into one column and give the column header as any one of Name/name/NAME.
- email: 'email','EMAIL','e-mail','E-Mail','E-mail','E-MAIL','Email'
- phone: 'phone','Phone','PHONE' - Phone numbers that pertain to the account's country (Manage->General->Basic Settings->Country) need not have country code. For other countries, country code is mandatory. Example, if the account's default country is USA, it is not necessary to add +1 to the number, whereas it is necessary to add +91 to an Indian number.
Contact Groups:
Use column name Contact Group. You can add multiple groups by separating them with commas.
Note: Contact group is case sensitive. The column heading for contact group can be of the following format:
contact group: 'Contact Group','contact group','CONTACT GROUP'
If a group doesn't exist, HappyFox will create one and associate the appropriate contacts while executing the import. However, we do recommend that you go into the "New Contact Group" and edit it to include a domain association. The field to update is "Auto Add contacts from these domains".
Update the existing records:
Updating already imported contacts with additional information is done effortlessly as well. Import the updated CSV file with the new or updated records and all the extra fields will be added to the contact fields under each contact.
Portal Access:
| Field Value | Portal Login Access |
|---|---|
true |
Contact can log in to the contact portal |
false |
Contact cannot log in to the contact portal |
| (empty value) | Defaults to true |
| (column not present) | Defaults to true |
Custom Fields:
Names must match exactly (case-sensitive) with those created in Manage > Custom Fields.
Note: In case of update, even if just one field needs to be changed, all other mandatory fields have to be filled.
For more information, please refer to the attached sample CSV file. There are three custom fields in the attachment-Brand, Brand1 Dept and Most Active Days.
Brand is a dropdown with values Brand 1, Brand 2 and Brand 3
Brand1 Dept is a dependent drop-down custom field that is displayed if Brand 1 is selected. This has three values- Brand 1 Sales, Brand 1 Support and Brand 1 Enquiries.
Most Active Days is multiple select fields which have the days of the week as options in the format "Monday, Tuesday.."
When updating contacts, all fields (Name, Email, Phone, Custom Fields) must still be present, even if you are only changing portal login access.
How to Import?
1. Now, login to your account as Account Admin, Go to Contacts from module switcher. Click “Import Contacts” icon on the top right. In Import contacts page, choose the CSV/XLS file to upload and click on "upload".
2. Once the import is completed, reports can be downloaded to see how many contacts are added and how many contacts are updated.
3. To cancel the import process, click on "Abort Import"
Note: Import happens in the sets of 50. For eg: If 75 contacts are imported already, and if you clicked on "Abort Import", then, the system will stop importing contacts once it reaches 100.
Error Handling:
When there are empty records on mandatory field values or missing field labels or field values separated by a semi-colon and other special characters, error messages are displayed with row IDs and field names that are responsible for this issue to help you fix the issue. Also, ensure that the name of the custom field matches the one in the column of the CSV file. If there is a mismatch, the values won’t be imported. It’s case sensitive and even a typo will derail a successful import.
