Importing Prospects

To maintain a healthy pipeline you need enough new leads to pursue. Membrain allows you to import new prospects into a Prospecting Process in a few simple steps, outlined below.

An overview

The first step is to download this Template Excel Spreadsheet, which has the default columns you need to get started and add the data you want to import.

Once you're happy with your spreadsheet, import this file into Membrain. This ensures all your data is aligned and imported into the correct fields within Membrain and your data integrity is maintained.

Download the Template

1. Find the Template Excel file online here or above, in the overview.
2. Go to File - Download - Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) to save a copy of the template locally on your computer.
3. If you're working online in Google you can go to File - Make a Copy and save it to your Google Drive.

Add your data

1. Export the data from your other systems to Excel.
2. Save the file as an XLS (Excel 97/2000/XP/2003) or XLSX (Excel 2007) file.
3. Make sure your data match the template either by formatting it according to the template or by copy-pasting it into the template (copy-pasting is not recommended for larger data sets).

Import into Membrain

1. Go to System Setup and scroll down to the Download box, click on "Import Prospects" and pick the Prospecting Process you want to import to.
   or
   Navigate to your Prospecting section via the menu on the left hand side. Pick what Process you want to see (import to) and click on the more menu (top right)
2. Click on Import
3. Click on “Upload a file to import” at top of the screen and browse to the file you have just created.
   

   

   Import Options: Choose to Create a new entry, update an existing entry, etc. (See screenshot for a detailed description)
4. Click Next
5. Map the fields by aligning them to their correct names. You will see errors and will be able to work through them in your spreadsheet until you are fully confident that your data is solid and ready to be imported.
6. Click import, and you're done!

Considerations

It is important to check the spreadsheet itself for duplicates BEFORE you do the import, as Membrain will not check for duplicates on the file itself.

Membrain uses certain fields as unique identifiers during the import to avoid creating duplicate records. For Prospects, the fields below are checked for pre-populated data and if found, the record will be skipped/overwritten or you will be asked how to proceed (based on what you have decided at the beginning of the import)

• Prospect Name
• External Identifier (if used)
• Email (if used)
• Name (under Company, First + Last).

Mandatory fields when importing Prospects

• Prospect Name (Name)
• Company Name

If you need more information on Advanced Settings, Mapping Fields, Mandatory Data or other import related subjects, please review the Data Import Fundamentals article before proceeding with the import.

Common Problems

Some situations, outlined below can cause problems when importing your data and should be checked before carrying out an import to ensure as clean as possible data is imported.

• Lack of a Prospect Name. During a Prospect import Name relates to the Prospect entity itself, NOT the Contact Name or the Company Name, and is a mandatory field that has to be present in all rows.
• Lack of Company Name. This is also part of the mandatory data needed for this type of import.
• Having multiple spreadsheets in the document you want to import. If you're using multiple spreadsheet in the same document, make sure to put the sheet with the data you want to import first in your document before saving/downloading the file. Membrain will always be looking at the first spreadsheet in the file when importing (exception to this rule is in automatic imports where you can pick what spreadsheet to import from regardless of spreadsheet order in file).