Pro
Trombinoscope Contacts Pro offers an extra tool to help import contacts into the Joomla! core Contacts component.
Go to the menu Components
-> Trombinoscope Contacts Pro
-> Import Contacts
| File | The .csv or .txt file to use for import |
| Delimiter | The column delimiter of the file |
| Update existing | If set to 'yes', the contacts are going to be updated with the new data. Otherwise, new contacts are created. You cannot mix new contacts and updated ones |
| Publish all | Publish all contacts or none of them |
| Category | Select the category all imported contacts will be included in. This way, the catidcolumn is unnecessary if all contacts belong to the same category. If contacts need to be imported into separate categories, add the catidcolumn in the file and select Data in file |
| Linked user | Link the selected user to all imported contacts. Leave blank if no linking is necessary. If contacts need to be linked to different users, you need to add the user_id column to the file |
There are a few sets of rules to follow for a successful import:
- The first line of the file must contain the column names,
- column names of the file must match the column names found in the following table,
- the catid column is required UNLESS it is not an update and you have selected the category in the category field. catid is the contact category id the contact will belong to (from the core Contacts component),
- name is a mandatory column, UNLESS the columns firstname and lastname BOTH exist. In that case, the name will be created from those two columns instead,
- to separate meta keys or tags, or if the data contains commas, choose a different delimiter for the columns (; or |) or escape the data with ". For instance, "Company X, Inc" is safe to use in conjunction with coma-separated columns.
When errors occur, logs are created under the file syw.errors.log in the site's logs folder. Use that file to find out what problems prevent the file to be imported.
| Supported columns | Examples | Default | Notes * |
|---|---|---|---|
| name | John Doe | firstname lastname | mandatory column unless both 'firstname' and 'lastname' columns exist |
| firstname | John | mandatory column if column 'name' is missing | |
| lastname | Doe | mandatory column if column 'name' is missing | |
| alias | john-doe | auto generation if column is missing | aliases are unique in a category. In case of duplicates, the second alias will be called name-1, the third name-2 and so on. Mandatory column when updating contacts already in the system |
| user_id | 42 | id of a user linked to the contact |
|
| catid | 13 | Contact component category id the contact belongs to. Mandatory column unless the category has been selected in the category field ON CREATION ONLY. On update, the column is required |
|
| con_position | Developer | ||
| address | 4520 N. Martin Drive/n#3 | adding /n creates a new line | |
| suburb | Chicago | ||
| state | IL | ||
| country | USA | ||
| postcode | 60640 | ||
| telephone | 773 400 2133 | ||
| fax | 773 400 2134 | ||
| mobile | 312 966 3453 | ||
| email_to | [email protected] | ||
| webpage | http://johndoe.com | the path must start with http:// or https:// | |
| misc | <p>A <i>great</i> developer!</p> | can contain basic html formatting | |
| image | images/johndoe.jpg | the path must start with images/. The image must be present in the media manager at the specified path | |
| published | 1 | publish all parameter value from the import form | |
| linka_label ... linke_label | |||
| linka ... linke | http://facebook.com/... | the paths must start with http:// or https:// | |
| access | 1 | 1 (means 'public') | for the list of available values, go to the User Manager -> Viewing access levels |
| sortname1 | Doe | recommended for accurate sorting of contacts | |
| sortname2 | John | ||
| sortname3 | |||
| language | en-GB | * (means 'all') | |
| metakey | developer, computing | ||
| metadesc | A great developer | ||
| featured | 1 | 0 | 1 is featured, 0 is not featured |
| tags | staff, board | tags must exist prior to import (in the core Tag component) |
* unless mandatory, all columns are optional
Additional fields
These fields come from the content plugin Add key contact fields. The plugin and the corresponding columns must be enabled prior to import.
| Supported columns | Examples | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| gender | m | m for male, f for female, c for other |
| birthdate | 1975-11-03 | the format YYYY-MM-DD is required |
| company | Company, Inc. | |
| department | Accounting | |
| map | goo.gl/maps/uPUaO | |
| summary | A <i>great</i> developer! | |
| jdoe | ||
| jdoe | ||
| jdoe | ||
| googleplus | jdoe | |
| skype | jdoe | |
| youtube | jdoe | |
| jdoe | ||
| jdoe |
Custom fields
It is possible to import data into custom fields (the custom fields must have been created prior to import).
There are a few conventions for the naming of the column:
- start the column name with
customfield:
- use the custom field's name as second part of the column name
| Supported columns | Examples | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| customfield:name | value | |
| customfield:name | value1,value2 | for list, imagelist, checkboxes, New radio and New sql field types |
Other than the mandatory columns, just use the columns that are necessary for your requirements.
- A compatibility issue with files saved on Mac (IOS) has been reported. Saving files as text solves the problem.
- Encoding of the imported file is important. UTF-8-BOM encoded files will fail to load (to save your file with proper encoding, a tool like
Notepad++
will help you determine if the file is encoded the right way). - The importing may not work when K2 is installed in Joomla! 3.1+ (when clicking on 'import', nothing happens). Disable the system plugin System - k2 just for the time needed for import. Re-enable the plugin once the upload of contacts has been terminated successfully.
