How to create and import contacts, teachers and organisations

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Creating new contacts and teachers
• How to create new contacts?
  • Create one contact
  • Importing multiple contacts at once with CSV 
  • How to create a contact with an account?
  • How to check whether a contact has an account? 
• How to create new teachers?
  • Create one teacher
  • Importing multiple teachers at once with CSV
• How to create new organisations?
  • Create one organisation
  • Importing multiple organisations at once with CSV
• More information

Creating new contacts and teachers

There are several ways to create new contacts or teachers in Eduframe. They both have their own tab (Contacts, Teachers) under 'Relations' for this. They can be created one by one or can be imported in bulk by using a CSV file.

If you import in bulk, we advise to go through the steps with a few contacts to see if everything is filled correctly. If that is the case, you can import a full CSV. 

A new contact can also be created via the signup form by the participant him- or herself. A new contact will be created after making an order and signing up via the signup form. 

If you want to add contacts directly to an organisation, you first have to import or create organisations within Eduframe. 

If you want to have other fields than the standard ones connected to a contact, you have to create custom fields first. 

If you want to have labels linked to a contact, you have to crate labels first.

How to create new contacts?

Create one contact

Within Eduframe you can create contacts by adding them one by one. To create one contact, follow the steps: 

• Go to the Relations tab in the global navigation menu
• Go to the Contacts tab
• Click on the blue + User button and then 'Create new contact'
• Fill in the fields for the contact: 
  • some fields are mandatory to fill, like first name, family name, email address and custom fields that you created and set as mandatory. 
  • custom fields can be created for contacts. More information can be found here. 
  • the field 'email login to contact' can be enabled or disabled. It will create an account for the new contact and sends the 'contact created' email. You can also send this email later via the tab 'Security'. 

Importing multiple contacts at once with CSV 

In Eduframe you can import new contacts in bulk by uploading a CSV file or copy pasting from a spreadsheet. The CSV import is the only way to create multiple new contacts at once.  

Warning: It is NOT possible to update already existing contacts through the CSV import. Updating information has to be done manually per individual contact.

1. Create a spreadsheet

   Create a spreadsheet. Ensure that the required fields for the contact are included in the first columns. Use the other columns for all other fields you would like to import. This can be anything from regular Eduframe fields like 'Family name' or custom contact fields.

   
   

   An example file is attached at the bottom of this article.

   
   

   Note: It is only possible to import specific columns of the CSV file that are already in Eduframe (see step 3).

   
   

   
   Here you will find some more information about the way Eduframe will accept the import of the columns:

   What	Required/Optional	Example(s)	Remarks
   First name	REQUIRED	“Eric”	No remarks.
   Email	REQUIRED	“eric@example.com”	No remarks.
   Family name	REQUIRED	“Smith”	No remarks.
   Checkbox (e.g. Newsletter, is teacher)	OPTIONAL	“TRUE”	Can also use ‘1’ for True and ‘0’ for False.
   Labels	OPTIONAL	”Software | Leadership | Education”	Use the same labels as defined in Eduframe when adding labels to contacts. Labels that do not exist will be ignored. It is case-sensitive. If you want to add multiple labels per contact, use "|" to divide them.
   Select field with multiple answers	OPTIONAL	“Math | Biology | English”	When adding multiple answers to a contact field, use "|" to divide them. Make sure that the answers are spelled the same way as the answers you attached to that custom field.
   Organisation	OPTIONAL	“Big Company BV”	Make sure that organisations already exist and are spelled the same way when connecting organisations to contacts. Not existing organisations will be ignored. It is case-sensitive.
   Address Fields			*If ‘Address’ is filled in, then ‘Street’ and ‘House number’ columns are not needed and vice versa. (Notice unused ‘Address’ column in Figure 1).
   *Address	OPTIONAL Exception: Is required if other address fields are filled in.	“Kalverstraat 14”	Fill in both the street name and house number.
   *Street	OPTIONAL Exception: Is required if other address fields are filled in.	“Kalverstraat”	If this is used, make sure ‘House number’ is also filled in.
   *House number	OPTIONAL Exception: Is required if other address fields are filled in.	“14”	If this is used, make sure ‘Street’ is also filled in.
   Country	OPTIONAL Exception: Is required if other address fields are filled in.	“NL”	Use the 2 letter ISO country code (check it here).
   City	OPTIONAL Exception: Is required if other address fields are filled in.	“Eindhoven”	No remarks.
   Zip/Postal Code	OPTIONAL Exception: Is required if other address fields are filled in.	“1234AB”	No remarks.
   Address line 2	OPTIONAL	“Kingston”	No remarks.
   State/Province	OPTIONAL Exception: Required if the country is ‘US’	“NY”	Use the 2 letter abbreviation (check it here).

   
   

   
   

2. Copy paste or upload the spreadsheet

   Go to Relations → Contacts → + Contact → Import contacts (csv)

   1. Organisation: Choose to which organisation you want to link ALL the contacts you are going to import.

      1. If an 'Organisation' column is present in the copied spreadsheet this organisation can be used. If you do not want to link ALL of the contacts to the same organisation, do not select one on the import screen.
      2. If no 'Organisation' field is present in the copied spreadsheet you can select to what organisation you want to link ALL imported contacts.
         
         

   2. Insert contacts:
      If copy/pasting

      1. Copy contacts: Open the created spreadsheet. Select all content (CTRL-A on Windows or CMD-A on Mac) and copy the selected content (CTRL-C on Windows or CMD-C on Mac).
      2. Paste contacts: Select the 'Copy-paste your CSV content' field and paste the copied contacts (CTRL-V on Windows or CMD-V on Mac).

   3. If uploading

      1. Under ‘Select CSV document’, click on ‘Choose file’.
      2. Use File Explorer (on Windows) or Finder (in Mac) to select your spreadsheet.

   4. Separation character: Specify which separation character your spreadsheet used. In most cases ";" is used, so this is selected by default.
      
      
      
      

3. Link the columns of the contacts to be imported with the existing fields in Eduframe

Select the right field in Eduframe for each column you want to import. An exact name match on the column header is not needed. Even if you have named a column differently you can link it to an existing Eduframe field (See ‘Family name’ in Figure 1). 

Note: If you do not select an Eduframe field, the import will ignore that specific column.

           Some additional remarks: 

• Check whether all the custom fields, organisations and labels already exist in Eduframe before you import the new contacts. Non existing elements will be ignored.
• Leave the checkbox "skip first line" checked if your spreadsheet has headers/titles on the columns. This will ignore the first row, which is usually used for the headers.
• This page shows the first 3 contacts (rows) of the spreadsheet to make it easier to match the right columns of the import with the right fields in Eduframe. The contacts that are not visible here will still be imported.

            When all the columns you want to import are linked to an Eduframe field, scroll down and click on "Check".
 

        Figure 1. Example of the column assignment table
            

Note: If the page looks like the screenshot below, try another separation character:

    Figure 2. Example when choosing the wrong separation character

        4. Check the import

In this last step you can check the import. When the contacts are highlighted green, the status is "OK", which means those contacts will be imported and their data is right.

When a contact is highlighted red, it means these contacts will not be imported. Some examples:

• "Authentications (0) uid has already been taken": As the email needs to be unique these contacts cannot be imported because they already exist in Eduframe. 
• "Signup answers [0] value Topic has no valid answer": You are trying to import an answer for the custom field "Topic" which doesn't exist. Therefore these contacts will not be imported. 

            To fix this, it is possible to customise the columns again, or to delete this import, modify the spreadsheet and try again.

Note: When you are importing contacts with an organisation, e.g. Shell for James Johnson, and Shell doesn't exist in Eduframe, the status can still be "OK" but James will not be linked to the Shell because it doesn't exist. Therefore always test the import first with a few contacts before importing everyone and make sure you use exactly the same spelling for the organisation name.  

In the example of the below screenshot only James and Mark will be imported in Eduframe. Becky will not be imported because her email address has already been taken. 

Figure 3. Example of contacts to be imported with their validation status

How to create a contact with an account?

A contact with an account is created when: 

• A new contact uses the signup form to order their first course. When saving the order, automatically a new contact with an account will be created. 
• As an admin you create a new contact with the 'Email login to contact' checkbox enabled
• Ad an admin you created new contacts in bulk through the 'Import users (csv)' option. 
  

How to check whether a contact has an account? 

1. Go to Relations > Contacts
2. Click on the person 
3. Click on the Security tab 
4. Check the text of the button in the Password block 
   1. If the button says 'Send login information' this means the contact has no account yet:
   2. If the button says 'Reset Password' this means the contact has an account:

How to create new teachers?

If you want to create teachers in Eduframe, a lot of steps from the previous chapter - 'how to create new contacts' - are the same. Teachers can also be created one by one or in bulk.

Create one teacher

A teacher is always a contact. This means:

• ...first you create a contact in the contact tab
• if you want to make that contact a teacher, you go to the teacher tab
• click on the '+ Teacher' button
  • either click on the 'Create new teacher' button and fill in the teacher (custom) fields. More information about (teacher) custom fields can be found here. The other (contact) custom fields cannot be filled in this Teacher tab, but can be filled or adjusted if you click on the name of the contact in the Contact tab.
  • or click on the 'New teacher from existing user' button and select the contact that you want to make a teacher. Teacher custom fields can be filled afterwards, if you click on the contact name in the tab Teacher.

Importing multiple teachers at once with CSV

The Teachers import is very similar to the Contacts import.

1. Go to Relations → Teachers

2. Click on + Teacher → Import teachers (csv)

3. Importing teachers takes the same steps as when you want to import contacts. The only difference is in Step 3, where you need to link other (custom) Eduframe fields to the CSV columns.

How to create new organisations?

There are multiple ways to import or enter new organisation into Eduframe. You can create them one by one, but you can als import multiple organisations at once with a CSV file. 

Make sure that you created contacts before creating organisations, so you can add the right (key) contacts to the organisation immediately.

If you want to have other fields than the standard ones connected to a contact, you have to create custom fields first. 

If you want to have labels linked to a contact, you have to crate labels first.

Create one organisation

Within Eduframe you can create organisations by adding them one by one. To create one organisation, follow the steps: 

• Click on the + Organisation button 
• Fill in the fields
• Save (on top left of the screen)

Importing multiple organisations at once with CSV

Besides contacts it is also possible to import multiple Organisations at once. It is only possible to create new organisations:

1. Go to Relations → Organisations
2. Click on + Organisations → Import organisations (csv)
3. Importing organisations take sthe same steps as when you want to import contacts. The only difference is in Step 3 in which you need to link other Eduframe fields to the CSV columns (the data for organisations).

Updating existing organisations in Eduframe has to be done manually per organisation.

More information

Click here for other Articles around the Settings page in Eduframe

Click here if you have any questions for support.