How to Import Leads (or any other CRM entity)

Importing leads into aimtheoryCRM is easy. After logging in, click on the Sales tab. This should bring you to your list of leads by default, unless you've made some custom changes. You'll notice two buttons that have little green up and down arrows. Those are the import and export buttons.

Click on the import button.

On the next screen, you'll have to choose a .csv format file on your computer. Make sure that you're .csv file is in the proper format. In order for the import to be executed properly, you need to follow the following format:

• All fields are separated by commas and must be individually wrapped by double-quote characters.

• All data sets must include the mandatory fields (e.g. Last Name and Company for leads).

• Fields that contain embedded line-breaks or fields with leading or trailing spaces are not allowed.

• Number fields have to contain numbers only without "." or "," characters (for instance, use 3800 instead of 3,800).

• Fields that contain double quote characters should be avoided. If you have to use them, they must be surrounded by double-quotes, and the embedded double-quotes must each be represented by a pair of consecutive double quotes.

• The first record in your file may be a header record containing column (field) names.

Here is an example of the proper format:

 "Company","Street","City","Postalcode","Country","Phone","Lastname" "ABC Company, Inc.", "123 Main St.","New York","New York", "12345","USA","(555)555-5555","Miller" "XYZ Company","234 Main St.","Los Angeles","California","54321","USA","(555)555-5000","John"

Once you have your file ready in the proper format, click the "Choose File" button and browse to the .csv file on your computer. Make sure to check the "Has Header" box so you can properly map the columns to the fields in aimtheoryCRM. Now click "Next".

Now it's time to map the columns to the fields in aimtheoryCRM. The drop lists in the far left column, "Mapping", contain all of the fields in aimtheoryCRM, including any custom fields that you may have created. The "Headers:" column contains the header column names in your .csv file. Just map the aimtheoryCRM fields to the header column names. 

If you want to save this mapping, just check the "Save as Custom Mapping:" box at the bottom left hand corner of the screen, and fill in the name of your custom mapping. When you go to the next step, your custom mapping will be saved.

Now to import your leads, click the "Import Now" button. On the next screen, you will be shown the progress of your import. aimtheoryCRM will import 500 leads at a time and show the progress for every 500 leads. When the import has been completed, you will be shown a partial list of the leads and be given the option to undo the import.

To see your imported leads, just click on the Sales tab and your new list will come up.