Contact Management - Import Contacts

Contact Management - Import Contacts

Overview

The YakChat contact import feature enables you to quickly upload and manage large volumes of contacts into either your Personal, Shared or Company contact books. You can import up to 1,000 contacts at a time using a CSV or XLS file.

Imported contacts are matched using their phone number, which acts as the unique identifier:
  1. If a contact already exists with that phone number, it will be updated.
  2. If no match is found, a new contact will be created.

Notes

  1. Only CSV and XLS file formats are supported.
  2. All phone numbers must be in E.164 format (e.g., +14151112222).
  3. At a minimum, each contact must include a First Name and a Phone Number.
  4. You can add tags to help organize contacts—either select from existing tags or create new ones during the import process.

Step 1: Using the Contact Template

  1. Go to the Contacts section of YakChat.
  2. Choose either the Personal, Shared or Company tab, depending on the type of contacts that you want to import.
  3. Click the Add Contact button and select Import Contacts from the dropdown.
  4. In the import panel that opens on the right-hand side, click the Download Template link to get the sample file.
  5. Open the downloaded template file and populate it with your contact data. You must include:
    1. First Name (Required)
    2. Phone Number in E.164 format (Required)
  6. Optionally: Last Name, Email Address, and any additional data you want to map later.
  7. Save your completed file in either CSV or XLS format.

Step 2: Importing contacts to YakChat

    1. Go to the Contacts section of YakChat.
    2. Choose either the Personal, Shared or Company tab, depending on the type of contacts that you want to import.
    3. Click the Add Contact button and select Import Contacts from the dropdown.
    4. In the panel that opens, click Browse files to locate and select your CSV/XLS file.
    5. If the file contains any phone numbers that already exist in your contacts, YakChat will show a warning: "Existing data will be overwritten."
    6. Confirm you wish to Continue.
    7. YakChat will now ask you to map the columns from your file to YakChat's contact fields.
    8. At a minimum, you must include
      1. First Name 
      2. Phone Number
    9. For Shared contacts, you must select the Inbox that the contacts will be assigned to.
    10. For Shared and Company contacts, you can also set the permissions for the contacts being imported:
      1. View and edit (default)
      2. View only
    11. Optionally, you can assign Tags to the imported contacts:
      1. You can select from an existing list of tags.
      2. Or, you can type a new tag name and press Enter to create it on the spot.
    12. Click Continue. You will see a preview of up to the first five contacts.
    13. Review the preview. If everything looks correct, click Import Contacts. 
    14. You'll receive a confirmation message with a summary of the number of contacts that were successfully imported, including:
      1. New contacts 
      2. Contacts updated (if the phone number already existed)

Importing Contacts Tutorial