Importing Customers From an Excel (.xls) spreadsheet

Merchanter offers the functionality to efficiently upload new customers or potential prospects into the system using the Excel (.xls) file bulk upload tool. This feature allows you to swiftly import prospective customers from events or bring in all necessary customers when setting up a new system, through a single quick upload process.

Before The First Upload

Please note that the customer import from spreadsheet feature is only available to T25 admin, local admin, and users with the User Role permission of Customers High (CU_HIGH).

Please ensure that your system administrator or Ten 25 support has set up the Xls importer correctly with the latest version of the tool see [LINK TO @How to setup Merchanter to Bulk Import Customers Once published] 

Customer Import Template

You will need to prepare your customer data for uploading into Merchanter. There is a handy template available to download  UT400 Customer Import.xls (Right-click the button and click Save link as…).  

With over 50 fields, this template can seem overwhelming. However, in [LINK TO @Excel fields to Import New Customer Records], there is a list of all the fields in the template along with brief descriptions of what they do. This guide focuses on performing the upload.

Importing the Spreadsheet

To import your spreadsheet of customers, click the Contacts menu, then choose the Customer option. Within the Live Customer - Overview, locate the Import from Spreadsheet button situated in the top right corner: 

Click on this button to initiate the Import Wizard.

In the Import File section click the Browse… button on the upload .xls field. Navigate to your customer data set and upload the .xls file by clicking the Read Import File button. The system will do a quick scan of the data to do some basic validation and you may see an error message like this:

This tells you that the Tax Registration Number in your .xls sheet is 19 characters but the field is limited to 15 characters in Merchanter.

If your file passes its first round of validation, you will now see a summary of your import data. Make sure the total number of records matches the number of customers you expect to import or update. You can also add a note to the upload if you like: 

At this point if you notice anything that you would like to change; you can go back or cancel the import; go back to Excel; or modify your data source before starting the upload process again.

If you are happy with the preview click the Validate Import File button and a secondary validation process will occur.  If there are any problems you will receive a warning message. The image below shows that 8 of the 11 products in my data set have issues that will prevent the upload of the data: 

Clicking the OK button will take you to a Validation Results screen. Here you get a summary of the error and how many records share the problem. If you click on one of the individual lines, you receive additional information on which record in the spreadsheet had the error. This will help you go back through the .xls data and clean up the errors:  

Below is the description of the most common errors when performing an upload:

Not found - the text you have entered is not found in the system settings and cannot be set. e.g. you typed “Selivered” instead of “Delivered” in the cell.

Missing - The cell is blank and the import needs something entered into the field.

For those errors, you will now need to go back to your data source, correct all the identified errors and then attempt the upload again. 

Customer code is not unique - this customer code already exists in the Merchanter database. This error can be fixed from the import tool.  Unlike the other errors when you click on this field, you are given the option to skip the record or to update it.  If you intend to update records we recommend adding the customer code to the Like Code field as well. Any fields you don't want to fill in will be copied from the existing customer, saving you some time.

To update the records pick the option from the drop-down and then click the Apply System Fix - Yes radio button.

Once you have set those fields the Fix and Import button will load in the bottom right-hand corner.

If there are no problems at all you will just see a green Import button. Now click the button to start the customer import.

After a short process, you should see an information pop-up with a summary of the operation:

You should have completed your customer upload. Double-check that your new customers look as they should!

Import Logs

Information about the import is saved in the Customer Imports area of the system. To check the log, go to Contacts → Customers and click Customer Imports on the menu. You can filter your import logs from this screen and then open them to view the status of the import.

Highlight the record and click View to load the import log. From here you can see additional details on the valid and invalid lines, as well as any validation errors.