Welcome to the CSV Importer! Designed to optimize the organization of your Contacts and expedite sending out surveys, our Importer combines the simplicity of the original with the automation of our Email to CSV Importer.
Jump To:
Overriding the Global Contact Rule to Send to all Contacts in the CSV immediately
Defining Confirmation Prompt Terms
Getting Started
Don't have a CSV ready to upload? Head over to our page on Creating a CSV Database.
The CSV file that you have created can be thought of as a template for future CSV files. This is a key step to automate the process of bringing in Contacts and data on a regular basis. You've taken the time to know what custom data fields about your contacts you want to be brought into AskNicely. These data fields will be associated with your contact's responses as a way to track and filter their results. Use this Template to build new CSV databases so that you can have consistent reporting with other survey responses in the future.
Don't worry, if your needs evolve to add or remove some custom data fields, you can always change the format of the CSV template. However, you will need to create a new CSV Importer. Each Importer is tied to a specific CSV template. Changes to custom data fields (aka your column headers in the CSV file) will fail if the file does not match the Template used to create the Importer.
You can navigate to the CSV Importer App by going to the AppStore and selecting Integrate. Next, scroll down to CSV Importer.
Hot Tip: You can also get to your CSV Importers through the "Import Contacts" button
on the Contacts Page
To start the process of importing your file, select Configure. Next, select Browse File or Drag & Drop a file into the box.
Settings
First, give your importer a thoughtful name - something that will make sense to you later, like "AskNicely Survey Recipients" or "Support Ticket Contacts." Be thorough in the "Description" field as well to help yourself remember the purpose of each CSV Importer that you create.
An email address is required to create the Importer. It will default to the user creating the Importer, but you may add as many stakeholders as necessary to the distribution list.
Next, you will need to tell AskNicely what to do with the Contacts imported on the CSV file so that the contacts in your CSV will be processed in the same manner every time.
Each of the radio buttons provide you with an automatic set of functions to act on the CSV file being imported. Read carefully as they have similar but unique actions.
Standard Options
New, updated, and reactivated
Our most popular option! This allows you to keep your current AskNicely Contacts list intact. The imported CSV gives the Contact list a refresh with up-to-date custom data fields, recently adopted contacts, and all those whom you want to make “Active”, allowing them to be eligible for a survey.
If a CSV Import is your Primary method for importing Contacts, this is your only option to update any information displayed on the Contacts Page. AskNicely does not allow you to edit Contact information with the platform itself.
If you also use an Integration to import Contacts, we highly recommend
Full Updates
These options allow you to completely replace your Active Contact list in the Contacts Page. Contacts who are not in these CSV files will be set to Inactive and made ineligible/removed from receiving surveys. To bring them back, simply add them onto the next CSV you import or manually select them in the Contacts Page.
Survey Immediately
Sending a targeted survey has never been easier or faster! The system will send the survey defaulted to each contact based on their Trigger Field. No extra steps necessary. This action will follow your Global Contact Rules on survey cadence and ignore your Send Scheduler settings.
Advanced Options
Queueing Contacts
Adding in those last minute contacts to receive a survey before your scheduler starts? Capture the contacts that may not have been added in time for the schedulers to survey and have them queued for the same day. Contacts will only get their defaulted survey based on their Trigger Field. Great for different contacts that are triggered for different surveys. You will still need to go to the Queue page to double check your intended contacts and send off the surveys.
No Longer Surveying
Here's your batch option to deactivate specific Contacts. People that you no longer want to survey or those you are not currently interacting with belong on your Inactive Contact list. They could be sent a survey in the future, but you do not want them eligible for the time being.
“But what if I want to force a survey out to all the people in my CSV file?”
Glad you asked. Sometimes you may want to send (or re-send) a survey to a group of Contacts. While we don't recommend re-surveying Contacts who don't respond--it reduces your Response Rate metric and can lead to Contacts unsubscribing--you do have the ability to override your Contact Rules
Nestled in the First and Third actions above is the ability to send out a survey, regardless of when a contact was last sent one. You must select one of those actions to access the Queue option.
After completing your new Column Mapping or loading a file into an existing Importer that uses one of those actions, you will have the option to Queue contacts.
Once you click on the checkbox, another prompt will appear to adjust your Contact Rule. Once the upload is complete, the system will check the last time each contact received a survey from AskNicely and queue surveys out based on the temporarily adjusted Contact Rule.
Leave the setting to "0 Days" to send the survey to everyone in the CSV.
Hot Tip: You will still need to go to the Queue Page
(yourdomain.asknice.ly/queue) to finish the sending process.
There you have it! Combine all the actions you want to accomplish with the CSV Importer and select the option best suited for your needs.
If your data changes significantly, delete the old, out-of-date CSV Importers.
Make sure you check and confirm your settings before moving forward. Once the Importer is created, you cannot change the action settings, so if you need a new one, just delete the Importer and restart the process.
Defining Confirmation Prompt Terms
Each time a CSV file is processed, you will receive a Confirmation Summary email.
Decoding the terms is pretty straightforward. Newly Added and Updated are straightforward terms. Refer back to our Standard Options section above for definitions.
Skipped as duplicate alerts you that some of your email addresses are repeated in the CSV. You'll need to check the file and update your Contacts information. The upload cannot guarantee which record will process last and be visible on the Contacts page.
Removed Contacts are those that are not found on the CSV when selecting the "Fully Update my list of Active Contacts". Those Removed Contacts are placed in your Inactive list.
Unable to Process means that there are email addresses with errors or characters that make them invalid, a blank cell where an email address should be for a Contact, or additional rows at the end of your CSV file that may have hidden data or rows in them. The file may also contain email addresses that are on your Email Blocklist.
Column Mapping
Mapping ensures that the Data fields that were brought in with your CSV file are matched to the right data fields in AskNicely. You'll be prompted to choose what columns you want to import, ones you want to ignore, and what you want to import them as. Luckily, AskNicely can quickly understand your data points and pre-populates this with column headers from previous uploads. However, if you need to change the name of the matching (ie. “Region” is now “Country”), you will be able to do so here.
Hot Tip: Even if a custom field is recognized, the drop down selection
will display the name as lower case and spacing shown with underscores
Advanced Settings for Custom Data
You have the option to choose to capitalize the first letter of the data included in a column to clean up your data. For example, if your data contains the header ‘City’ but the contact data contains the city randomly with upper and lower case such as ‘Washington’ for Contact 1 but ‘washington’ for contact 2, you can check the box to capitalize any first letter to upper case to make your data more consistent and easier to view. In the example below, we’ve made this field ‘Washington’ for all contacts.
Should your custom data include multiple data points, you separate them with a ; and indicate by enabling the check box.
If everything looks good to go, select Continue.
Check Point
This is your chance to review your configuration settings one last time before we import this CSV! If you are satisfied, select Continue. If you need to make any changes before locking it in, click Edit settings or Edit mapping or you can select Start Over to start from scratch.
Once you’ve moved forward, the Import Summary email will be sent to the email address set at the beginning. You did it! Congratulations!
You can always come back to the CSV Importer page anytime through the App Store (
) to upload data with the same format and processing method or use the unique email address or API endpoint associated with the Importer to send the file automatically.
Editing Settings
Once created, you cannot change the Primary function of the Importer. To change how the system processes your CSV file, you will have to create a new CSV Importer or choose the one you've made that performs the action you need.
To change the Name, Description, Confirmation email recipients, or Column Mapping of the CSV Importer, simply click on the three dots to View Details.