Import deals into ActiveCampaign

You can use the import tool to import open deals from a CSV file into your ActiveCampaign account. You may want to do this if you were using a different CRM previously and wish to use ActiveCampaign's CRM  feature.

Take note

• Account admins have access to this feature. All other user groups must have permission to use this feature
• The import tool only works with CSV files
• The file format of your CSV file should be UTF-8 to ensure special characters are imported
• The import file size limit is 100 MB
• Pipelines, stages, and deal custom fields must be configured in ActiveCampaign before import
• Deal owners (ActiveCampaign account users) must be created in ActiveCampaign before import
• All deals will be imported into ActiveCampaign will have an "Open" status
• Deals that do not have a defined value will be given a default value of $100 upon import
• It is not possible to import multiple contacts to a single deal during an import
• It is impossible to create a contact role for the deal during an import. To create a contact role for a deal, you must use the API 

Deal import CSV file requirements

Your CSV file will need to contain the following items:

• Pipeline
  The name must exactly match an existing pipeline in your ActiveCampaign account. Each pipeline should have a unique name.
• Stage
  The name must exactly match an existing stage in your ActiveCampaign account. Stages across different pipelines can have the same name.
• Deal title
  Each deal must have a title in your file. If there is no deal title, an error will occur.
• Deal owner (email address or ActiveCampaign username)
  Each deal in your file must have a defined deal owner. A deal owner is an ActiveCampaign account user. You can use either the deal owner's ActiveCampagin account username or email address.
• Deal ID (optional)
  If you wish to update deals in your account during import, your CSV file must contain a column for Deal IDs. To locate the ID for your deals, export your deals first. The export file will contain the ID for each deal. 
• Contact (email address or ActiveCampaign Contact ID) or Account (Name or ActiveCampaign Account ID)
  Each deal in your file must be associated with a contact or an account.
  • If using Contact:
    You must use either a unique email address or an ActiveCampaign Contact ID in your file. The importer will search for exact matches of either email address or Contact ID. If an exact match is found, the contact in ActiveCampaign will be updated with information in your file. A new contact profile record will be created if there is no exact match for an email address. There will be an import error if there is no exact match for a Contact ID.
  • If using Account:
    You must use either an Account name or ActiveCampaign Account ID in your file. The importer will search for exact matches of either the Account name or Account ID. If an exact match is found for either, the Account in ActiveCampaign will be updated with information from your file. If there is no exact match for the Account name, a new account will be created in ActiveCampaign. There will be an import error if there is no exact match for Account ID.
    
    

      It is impossible to assign an account owner during the deal import process. If your CSV file contains an "Accounts" column, we'll assign all accounts in your file to the default account owner. If you would like to learn more, you can visit "How to assign ownership of accounts."

• Make sure your field values do not contain any line breaks. This can cause the import to fail
• Date fields must follow this format: YYYY-MM-DD
• Multiple values for a field must be separated by a comma(s): Option 1, Option 2
• For Money-type fields, add two zeros to the end of the value in the CSV. If you don't, the importer will add a decimal point or remove zeros from your field value. See My Deals import added a decimal or removed 0's from Deal money value for more information
  

How to import deals into your ActiveCampaign account

1. Click Deals on the left menu.
2. Click "Import deals."
3. An "Import Deals" modal will appear. Click the "Select File" button.
4. Click the CSV file you wish to import. The file will upload to the importer.
5. Next, you'll need to map columns from your file to fields in ActiveCampaign.
   • We'll attempt to automap fields based on the headers contained in your file
   • The "Field values" column on the right will show you a preview of the field values
   • To map fields, click each ActiveCampaign field name dropdown to map it to a column in your file. You can only map one column to one field
   • Note that if you do not map "Deal Value," the deal will have a default value of $100 upon import
6. Clicking the "Advanced Options" menu lets you:
   • Use default values for required fields left blank
     If you do not provide a value for required fields in your file, or if you do not apply the default value option, the record will be skipped by the importer
   • Allow blank fields to overwrite existing data
     By default this is turned Off. This means that existing data in your ActiveCampaign account will not be overwritten by blank values in your CSV file. If you wish to overwrite existing data with blank fields from your file, click the toggle to set it to the On position
   • Select a default pipeline
     All deals that do not have a pipeline listed in your CSV will be added to this default pipeline. To use this option, click the "Pipeline" dropdown and click the pipeline you wish to use as the default
   • Select a default stage for deals where a stage is not defined in your CSV file
     All deals that do not have a stage in your CSV will be added to this default stage. To use this option, click the "Stage" dropdown, then click the stage you wish to use as the default
7. When finished, click the "Import" button.

The file will start to import into your ActiveCampaign account. You may close or navigate away from the page while the import runs.

View deal import results

The Import Status page will list all deal and account imports you performed in your account. Note that you need permission to import Deals or Accounts to access this page.

To locate the Import Status page:

1. Click Deals on the left menu.
2. Click the "Import/Export Status" option.

Each deal and account import will contain the following information:

• File name
• Import date
• Imported by (will list account username of individual who performed the import)
• Status of import (Complete or Failed)
• Type of import (Deal or Account)
• Number of rows that had errors
• Error file to download (available only if rows had errors)

View deal import errors

If there were any errors with your import, we'll display the number of rows in your file that had an error. We'll also supply a CSV file containing errors that you can download. You can use this download to learn more about which rows did not import and why. This information is located on the Import Status page of your ActiveCampaign account.

Error messages in the file can include:

• Account ID not found
  This error will appear if you mapped the Account ID and there wasn't an exact match in ActiveCampaign.
• Contact ID not found
  This error will appear if you mapped the Contact ID and there wasn't an exact match in ActiveCampaign.
• Deal ID not found
  This error will appear if you mapped the Deal ID and there wasn't an exact match in ActiveCampaign.
• Deal Owner email not found
  This error will appear if you mapped Deal Owner email and there wasn't an exact match in ActiveCampaign.
• Deal Owner username not found
  This error will appear if you mapped Deal Owner username and there wasn't an exact match in ActiveCampaign.
• Deal title was not provided
  This error will appear if your file did not contain a title for a deal.
• Field 'email' not found
  This error will appear if you mapped a contact's email address and the row did not contact an email.