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How do I set up an automatic contact import?

Automatic import is based on the same principles as manual import.

  1. To begin, go to the Distribution tab of the survey concerned ( Project page > click on the survey > click on the Distribution tab).
  2. Then select ‘Automatic import’.
  3. There are five steps to the import process:

Step 1: SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol)

At this stage, we send you :

  • a code specific to each survey to be added at the beginning of the name of your files deposited in the SFTP directory ;
  • the connection details for the SFTP directory, either to connect directly or to pass on to your technical team to automate the uploading of your files.

Step 2: Import

To continue, you need to import an example contact file, respecting the file criteria. The sample file must have the same structure as the files that will be uploaded to the SFTP server.

The criteria to be met (you can help yourself by downloading the example file) :

  • The file must be encoded in UTF-8.
  • The column separator must be a semicolon.
  • The file must contain a first header line containing the column names. A column header cannot be empty. And it cannot have the same column name more than once.
  • The file must have a maximum size of 100 MB.
  • The file must have at least one line corresponding to a contact, in addition to the header line

❗ You must accept the RGPD (General Data Protection Regulation) consent criteria in order to continue importing your contacts.

Step 3: Correspondence

At this stage, you need to make the correspondences between the columns in your contact file and the metadata in your project.

💡 Remember toname the column headers in your file with the same headings as the metadata, the correspondences will then be made automatically.

❗ You must have matches for the Contact ID and E-mail metadata in order to continue configuring the automatic import.

❗ The automatic processing of the uploaded files will be based on the matches configured at this stage. Files with different column headers will not be imported.

Step 4: Distribution

💡Acontact is identified on the Contact ID & E-mail metadata pair. Your file is automatically cleaned up; we only import the first contact in the file when the contact is present several times in the file.

At this stage, you first need to define the import rule for the same contact, using one of three options:

  • define a delay between 2 imports: your existing contacts will only be imported if the last import was more than the number of days ago that you have defined (between 1 and 365 days);
  • always import: your contacts will always be imported, regardless of the date of the last import;
  • import once only: your existing contacts will be imported once only and will not be imported again during subsequent imports.

Next, you need to choose whether or not to activate the sending of invitations. When the sending of invitations is activated, you can choose to send the invitations immediately or to stagger the sending by defining a number of staggered days and a sending time.

Invitations can be sent between 8am and 7pm Monday to Friday, and between 10am and 6pm on Saturdays.

💡 When setting up the import and for the first tests of depositing files on the SFTP server, we advise you to deactivate the sending of invitations. Once this process has been validated, you can activate the sending of invitations and ask your technical department to upload a file with test contacts. You can then test and validate the entire chain, from automatic import and sending of invitations to collection of responses.

Stage 5: Summary

At this stage, the summary of your settings allows you to check all the details before finalising the configuration of your automatic import.