OccamImport your donor list before anything else, so the gifts you bring in afterwards land on the right people. This article covers the columns Occam reads and how it handles people who are already in Occam. For the import steps themselves, see Importing: how it works.
Before you start
- Export your contacts from your old system as a CSV file.
- Put first and last names in separate columns. If your file has one column for the whole name, split it in your spreadsheet first.
The columns
In the sidebar, go to Import Data and select Donors / Contacts. Occam reads four columns:
| Occam field | Required | Column headings it recognizes |
|---|---|---|
| First name | Yes | First Name, FirstName, FName, Given Name, First |
| Last name | Yes | Last Name, LastName, LName, Surname, Family Name, Last |
| Yes | Email, Email Address, E-mail, EmailAddress, Primary Email | |
| Phone | No | Phone, Phone Number, Mobile, Cell, Telephone, Primary Phone |
Capitals, spaces and punctuation in your headings don't matter. A heading that contains one of these words, such as "Primary Email Address", is recognized too. Always check the guesses on Map columns: a column headed only "Name", for example, is guessed as First name.
Every other column is ignored, including mailing addresses, notes and giving totals. Occam's donor records don't have a mailing address. To bring in past gifts and totals, import your giving history next.
How Occam matches donors
- One donor per email address. Occam ignores capital letters and extra spaces in email addresses.
- Already in Occam: if a donor with that email address exists, the row is skipped. Their name and phone number stay as they are.
- Repeated in your file: if an email address appears more than once, Occam imports the first row and skips the rest. The Review step tells you how many repeats it found. If two people share one email address, such as a couple, only the first is imported. Add the other by hand with their own email address. See Add and edit donors.
Rows that fail
A row fails with Missing first or last name if either name is blank, or Missing or invalid email if the email address is blank or isn't written as a valid address. Download the error rows, fix them and import that file. See Importing: how it works.
Email subscriptions
Everyone you import starts out subscribed to your email, like every new donor. Unsubscribes from your old system don't come across, and you can't mark someone as unsubscribed yourself.
Before you import, take out anyone who unsubscribed from your old system's emails. Keep in mind that importing a person's past gifts also adds them as a donor, subscribed, if they aren't in Occam yet.