Hello there - You look like someone who has reviewed our introduction to the import and data formatting articles and is ready to import!

In this article, we'll take a look at how you can import your data into Keela and some important bits and pieces of information along the way.

Navigating to the Imports tab in Keela

(1) To begin the import, navigate to Organization Settings > Import tab 

(2) Click on New Import

Choosing your Import Settings

After you click on the "New Import" button shown above, a pop-up window will appear that will allow you to choose some settings for your import.

Note: There are many more settings for the Contacts Data Type (Number 2 in the below screenshot) than there are for Donations, Revenues, Memberships and Volunteer data.

1. Select a CSV File from your computer
2. Specify the Data Type (In this case, we have chosen Contacts)
3. Confirm how Keela should check for duplicates (these options will not appear for Donation, Volunteer or Revenue data)
4. Confirm how Keela should handle any duplicates if found (these options will not appear for Donation, Volunteer or Revenue data)

Note: We cover the Duplicate Checking options (steps 3 & 4) in more detail here.

Click on the Save button to save these settings and move to the next screen.

Matching your Columns to Fields within Keela

Columns and Fields will automatically match if they are exactly the same

In our Data Formatting articles (Contacts, Donations, Revenue, Membership and Volunteer articles), we spent some time discussing the Accepted Fields that data can be imported into in Keela. If the Column Headers in your spreadsheet match these fields exactly (ie. the same spelling and punctuation), Keela will do this matching process for you!

Note: This even includes Custom Field columns. Just be sure to set these up in your Keela account before importing so that Keela knows what to look for when matching up columns.

If a Column Header doesn't match an existing field in Keela, you can match them manually

If your column headers do not match Keela's Accepted fields exactly, you'll need to match these manually.

Match the headers from your excel sheet to the correct field in Keela by clicking Select Field above each column in your spreadsheet.

Once you're satisfied with the field matching and duplicates management, click the Start button to begin the import into Keela!

Import Validation

Import Validation will help keep your data clean and reduce the quantity of erroneous data being uploaded into Keela. When importing a CSV to Keela, the system will automatically check the first 10,000 lines of the imported CSV to ensure that the requisite data is following Keela’s formatting guidelines. If any errors are found, Keela will provide a description of the error(s) and the row(s) that were affected. Keela will display up to 20 individual errors per error code and identify which rows contain this erroneous data. Once this data has been corrected, you can proceed by re-uploading the CSV file. 

Want to learn more about this? Head Import Validation Error Codes and Import Statuses.