Mass updating my contacts with information in a csv file

[Logisys]

Hi all.

I have just converted from Act by Sage to Sugar, and so far, it has been a great upgrade for our CRM system.

There are roughly 7000 contacts in my SugarCRM database, and I need to update around 1200 of these with some new information. I have the updates in a csv file.

I had hoped I could use the import function to do this, but as far as I can see, there are only two possible outcomes:

• If I filter for duplicates based on last name and email (under advanced import options), all the updates become duplicates and are not imported.
• If I don't filter, and just import the contacts, they all need to be merged. (Merging 1200 contacts one at a time seems like a lot of work,

Is there some other way of getting my 1200 contacts updated?

Kind regards
Chris

[Logisys]

Slight update.

I found, that I can mass update through a csv file *if* the file contains the unique contact ID.

The problem still stands, though - I have file with first names, last names and emails of existing contacts, as well as a bit of new info. (A couple of checkboxes)

Does anyone have a good idea how I can perform the mass update with this?

Krgds
Chris

[tlugar]

If you have the unique id's of the contacts and perform a "create and update" import, this should update existing contact's that have the same ID, instead of creating duplicates of them. In order to update new field information, go into studio and first make sure the field is set to Importable=Yes, then add the field name to the header of the .csv file obviously with the correct information for each contact below it. If you are looking to import checkbox values I use 0 for false/no/No and 1 for true/yes/Yes.