Salesforce Import Cheatsheet
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IMPORTING YOUR ORGANIZATIONS
ACCOUNTS AND CONTACTS
Summary
Import up to of your
organizations existing
contacts and business
accounts from common
contact manager
applications This wizard is
available to administrators
and users with the Modify
All Data permission
Business Accounts
Only
You can only import
business accounts with
this wizard For
information on importing
person accounts see the
Salesforce online help
Importing Your Organizations Accounts and Contacts
With the Data Import Wizard you can import your users business accounts and contacts from Outlook
ACT or any program that can save data in the CSV commaseparated values format such as Excel or
GoldMine
Preparing the Import File
To get started prepare your organizations business account and contact data so its in the proper format
for importing to Salesforce
Compare the account and contact data to existing Salesforce account and contact fields to make sure
there are places to import the information
If necessary create custom fields or picklist values for data that cant be mapped to existing Salesforce
fields For example if some of your users contact information includes sales region data create a
Salesforce custom field called Sales Region
Export each users account and contact information to a CSV file See the Salesforce online help for
tips on creating export files from ACT Outlook GoldMine and other data sources
Using a spreadsheet program like Excel merge each export file into a single CSV file This is your import
file
Verify that the data in the import file is in the correct format
Sort the data by account name and make sure that all company names are spelled accurately and
consistently For example HP and Hewlett Packard create separate accounts
Ensure that there is only one phone number per field
Make sure that contact names and titles are in separate fields
Make sure the file only contains values in one language
Label each column in the file with a name that corresponds to the standard or custom Salesforce
field where you want to import the columns data This simplifies the data mapping step that you
perform when running the import wizard
This table shows some examples of contact field mappings The Salesforce online help also provides
some mapping examples
Label for Your Import File
Salesforce Field
Contact Description
Contact Description
Contact Note
Creates a note attached to the contact
Lead Source
Contact Lead Source
Last updated March
Importing Your Organizations Accounts and Contacts
Running the Data Import Wizard
Add a Record Owner column to the import file and specify the owner of each account and
contact Enter the owners Username or Full Name for example jsmithacmecom or Joe Smith
Note You cant change the owners of existing records with the import wizard
If you configure the import wizard to use record IDs for matching this column is ignored
Running the Data Import Wizard
Testing Your Import
File
Before importing all of your
organizations account and
contact data we
recommend that you try a
small test import first Create
a copy of your import file that
contains five records and use
the import wizard to verify
that the test data is imported
correctly
To run the Data Import Wizard for AccountsContacts
From Setup enter Data Import Wizard in the Quick Find box then select Data Import
Wizard
Click Launch Wizard
Follow the instructions on the wizard screens
The import process involves these steps
Upload the CSV import file into the import wizard
Define the matching criteria that the wizard uses to avoid importing duplicate accounts or contacts
Map the columns in the import file to the desired Salesforce fields
When you finish the wizard the import file is placed in a queue for processing Import files are processed
in the order in which they are received You receive an email when the import completes
Note You cant import accounts or contacts that belong to Read Only or deactivated Salesforce
users Read Only users cant own any type of record
Importing Notes and Picklists
If the import file contains data that doesnt map to your Salesforce fields you can include it in notes on
either contact or account records
Each note is allowed a maximum of characters
Notes cant contain embedded quotes for example this is a note with embedded quotes
The notes title is determined by the column header in the import file The data in the column is added
to the body of the note
If the import file includes picklist values you can import them into existing Salesforce picklists that accurately
represent the data When importing picklists
You can import any value into a picklist even if the value isnt predefined You can edit the picklist
later to include the new values
In the import file separate multiselect picklist values with semicolons
You can import a maximum of new picklist or multiselect picklist values for any field during a
single import
Preventing Duplicate Accounts and Contacts
To minimize the chance of importing duplicate accounts and contacts to Salesforce the Data Import
Wizard looks for data in the import file that matches existing Salesforce records
Importing Your Organizations Accounts and Contacts
Updating Existing Salesforce Accounts and Contacts
When you run the Data Import Wizard you can choose to identify matching accounts and contacts by
name email address or Salesforce record ID
When matching contacts by name the import wizard compares the import data to the Account
Name Account Site First Name and Last Name or Full Name fields
When matching accounts by name the Data Import Wizard compares the import data to the
Account Name and Account Site fields
When matching by record ID note that IDs are casesensitive
The Data Import Wizard uses these rules when looking for matches
Case is ignored Forbes is the same as FORBES
Punctuation is ignored IBM is the same as IBM
Abbreviations arent treated as duplicates HP and Hewlett Packard are imported as two different
accounts
These words are ignored in account names when surrounded by spaces or punctuation or when they
appear at the beginning or end of a name
Co Company Corp Corporation Inc Incorporated International Intl Limited LLC Ltd PLC The
For example Limited The matches The Limited but not TheLimited
com is not ignored so if you have entries for Forbes and Forbescom two accounts are created
Duplicate information in the import file is merged into the same Salesforce record
Note In a Private or Public Read Only sharing model duplicate accounts and contacts are created
for each owner unless the owner specified in the import file has readwrite access to the existing
matching record
Updating Existing Salesforce Accounts and Contacts
If the Data Import Wizard finds a name in the import file that matches an existing Salesforce contact
record the wizard updates the record with the import data
The import wizard never overwrites your existing account data unless you select the Overwrite
existing account values checkbox If selected the wizard updates existing account values
with newly imported values but doesnt update existing field data with blank values If you dont select
this option the wizard updates empty account fields but leaves fields with existing data alone
