Upload and New Contacts With Your Data File

Account and program admins can add new contacts at any time via a CSV file upload from the programs tab. 

Creating the file 

Start with a CSV file containing the required data fields: customer_id, first_name, last_name, group_list, and phone. You can choose to add timezone as well if your contacts are in various timezones and you have access to that data. If you do not add a timezone column, all contacts will be assigned to your program's default timezone. You can include as many additional custom fields as you would like, as long as those fields have been created in Message. Click here to learn how to create new custom fields.

Be sure to assign each contact one or more groups in the group_list column - when the file is uploaded, any unique value that appears in the group_list column will appear as a list. 

To add a contact to more than one group_list, use a semi-colon between each group. To add a contact to groups 1 and 2, for instance, make the group_list value Group 1;Group 2.

Uploading the file

Start by clicking Import Contacts. Select the program at left, then click Import Contacts. Upload your CSV file, then leave the Import new contacts box checked and the Update existing contacts box unchecked.

Choose an error setting (the first option runs the file regardless of errors, but gives detailed information on what rows were skipped and why; the second option only runs the file if no errors are encountered).

Finally, click Start Import. Once the file runs, a summary will appear with the number of newly added contacts and the number of errors.

We've created a file with the required data data fields, and additional custom fields. We'll save the file as a CSV.

After navigating to Import Contacts and selecting our CSV file, we'll leave Import new contacts checked, and Update existing contacts unchecked. We've selected to Only import the file if there are no errors. We'll click Start Import to upload the file and opt the contacts out.