If you don’t have a church management system, or you don't want to integrate with your church management system, a CSV upload is a great way to quickly populate your Gloo account with people.
Note that if you haven't already done so, in order to use this feature you'll need to first authenticate your account by following the instructions in this simple article.
How to import people using a CSV file
Navigate to People -> Integrations. Click the Import button.
Note that you can also access the Import CSV page from your main People menu by clicking Bulk upload people.
Download this template to input the information in the appropriate format for an upload.
Enter each person's information into the CSV template in this format.
Even if you don't use a particular column for any of your contacts, such as the optional Address column, do not delete the column completely or it will cause an error. Simply leave that column blank.
You also should never add additional columns to the template, as this will also cause an error.
Finally, do not change the order of the columns, as this will cause an error.
Note that First Name is always required, and we recommend using real names whenever you can—it makes things easier down the road. You can always update names later, but keep in mind edits need to be made one contact at a time.
Also note that each contact must contain either a Phone Number, Email, or both. If both the Phone Number and Email columns are blank, you will get an error when trying to upload.
Upload the document and then click Continue.
Note: If there are any immediate problems with your file, you will see an error message at the bottom of your screen. Check out this article if you need help resolving those errors, or review the notes under step 3 above. Most often these errors are caused by deletion/renaming/reordering of the columns in the csv.
Match the group names in your CSV document to the correlating groups in your Gloo account. If those groups don't exist yet in your Gloo account, you can create them here. Then click Continue.
Ensure there are no errors. If there are any errors, the system will prompts you to fix each one individually. Once any error have been resolved, click Continue.
Verify that the information is correct. Then click Continue.
Verify you have permission to text the phone numbers you are importing and click Yes, Import People to finalize your import.
If you receive an error upon submission, please do not continue trying to submit your csv. The Gloo Support Team will contact you as soon as possible to help you work through the submission error. Feel free to email us at support@gloo.us if you need a quicker response time.
Once your csv upload has fully processed, the numbers will populate under People.
How to update information using a CSV upload
You can also use a CSV upload to update information for contacts that already exist in your account! When you upload a CSV file, Gloo looks at each contact's phone number to determine whether that contact is already in your database. If a matching phone number is found, Gloo will update the existing contact with any new information from your file instead of creating a duplicate.
One important thing to keep in mind is that Gloo uses phone numbers—not email addresses—to identify existing contacts during a CSV upload. For example, if a contact already exists in Gloo with a particular phone number and email address, but the contact in your CSV has the same email address with a different phone number, Gloo will treat that contact as new and create a separate record. Understanding how Gloo matches contacts can help you keep your database clean, organized, and up to date.
Important: The only piece of information that cannot be updated via a CSV upload is a person's phone number. In order to update a phone number, you must go into their profile in the People tab and make the change there. If you try to make that change by uploading a csv, the system will create a brand new person attached to that phone number.