Importing: how it works

If you're moving to Occam from another system, you can bring your records in from a spreadsheet instead of typing them. You export a CSV file from your old system, tell Occam which column is which, check the result, and import it.

Before you start

• Only owners and admins can import. Import Data is in the Admin group of the sidebar.
• Occam imports CSV files only. If your file is an Excel workbook, save or download it as CSV first. Excel and Google Sheets can both do this.
• The first row of the file must be the column headings.
• A file can have up to 5,000 rows. Split a bigger file into several and import each one.

What you can import

Donors / Contacts, Donations / Giving history and Funds / Designations are always available. Volunteers, Memberships and Pledges appear when those tools are turned on.

Import in this order:

1. Donors. See Import donors.
2. Funds, so that gifts and pledges can be matched to them by name.
3. Memberships, once you've created your membership tiers in Occam. The import doesn't create tiers.
4. Giving history. See Import giving history.
5. Pledges.

Volunteers can go in at any point. The order matters because an import never changes a record that's already there. If you import gifts first, they create donor records with only a name and email. A later donor import then skips those donors, so their phone numbers never come in.

Import a file

1. In the sidebar, go to Import Data.
2. Select what you're importing.
3. Drop your CSV file on the box, or click the box to choose it.
4. On Map columns, Occam has guessed which of your columns goes with each Occam field, from the column headings. Check each one and fix any that are wrong. Fields marked with a red asterisk are required. Leave a field on — skip — if your file doesn't have it. Then select Preview.
5. On Review, check the counts and the first 10 rows. Occam tells you how many rows are missing a required field, which will fail. Then select the import button, which shows your row count, such as Import 250 rows.
6. When it finishes, you'll see how many records were Created and Skipped, and how many rows had Errors.

Existing records are skipped, never updated

If a row matches a record that's already in Occam, Occam skips it and counts it under Skipped. It never changes the existing record, so you can't use an import to correct names or phone numbers. Change those on the donor's profile instead. See Add and edit donors.

What counts as a match depends on what you're importing. Donors match by email address, funds by name, and gifts by donor, amount and date.

Fix the rows that failed

Rows with a problem are left out, and the rest are imported. Under Rows that didn't import, each failed row is listed with the reason. Select Download error rows to get a CSV of only those rows, with the reason in an Import Error column. Fix them in your spreadsheet, then import that file. Occam recognizes its column headings, so the mapping is filled in for you.

In the error file, any value that starts with a minus sign, plus sign, equals sign or @ has an apostrophe added in front, such as a phone number written '+1 555 0100. Delete the apostrophe before you import the file again, or it's saved with the number.

Good to know

• Importing doesn't email anyone. No receipts, welcome emails or automations go out.
• Each import is recorded in the Audit Trail.