How to Create and Import Contacts, Teachers and Organisations

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Creating New Contacts and Teachers
• How to Create New Contacts?
  • One by One
  • Bulk import with CSV  
    • Create a spreadsheet
    • Import spreadsheet in Eduframe
    • Link the columns of the spreadsheet to existing fields in Eduframe
    • Check the import
  • How to create a contact with an account?
  • How to check whether a contact has an account? 
• How to create new teachers?
  • One by One
  • Bulk Import with CSV
• How to create new organizations?
• More information

Creating New Contacts and Teachers

There are several ways to create new contacts or teachers in Eduframe: one by one or imported in bulk (with a CSV file). See details in the next chapters.

If you choose to import in bulk, always go through the described steps below with a few contacts, to see if everything works as you want. If it works for a few contacts, you can import a full CSV. Note that the maximum amount of contacts to import per CSV is 100. 

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 organization, you first have to import or create organizations 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 create labels first.

How to Create New Contacts?

One by One

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

• Go to the Contacts tab in the global navigation menu
• Go to the Contacts tab
• Click on the blue + Contact button and then 'Create new contact'
• Fill in the fields for the contact: 
  • Some fields are always mandatory to fill, also for an administrator: first name, last name, email. Mandatory custom fields are not mandatory to fill for an administrator. 
  • The field 'email login to contact' can be enabled or disabled. If enabled, an account will be created for the new contact and the 'contact created' email will be send. This email can also be send at a later moment via the tab 'Security' on a contact. 

Bulk import with CSV  

In Eduframe, you can import new contacts in bulk by uploading a CSV file or copy pasting information 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 of existing contacts has to be done manually per individual contact.

To import new contacts in bulk, follow these steps:

1. Create a spreadsheet

   First you create a spreadsheet with the name of all (required) fields you want to be added per contact in Eduframe. Examples: first name, last name, email address and address. We recommend to start with the mandatory fields (name and email address), followed by optional fields, often created with custom fields. At the bottom of this article, you can find an example CSV file. 

   
   

2. Import spreadsheet in Eduframe

   To import the created spreadsheet in Eduframe, you go to Contacts (in the global navigation menu) → tab Contacts → click blue button '+ Contact' → Click 'Import contacts (csv)' and fill the following:

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

   • Organization: Choose to which organization you want to link all the contacts of your import.

     1. If you added a column 'Organization' in the spreadsheet and this is filled with (multiple) organizations, the relevant organization will be added to the related contact. In this case, you do not select an organization in the import screen in Eduframe. 
     2. If you did not add a column 'Organization' to the  spreadsheet, you can select to what organization you want to link all imported contacts.

   • Insert contacts by copy-pasting

     1. Copy contacts: Open your created spreadsheet. Select all content and copy the selected content.
     2. Paste contacts: Click in the field under 'Copy-paste your CSV content or...' and paste the copied contacts.

   • Insert contacts by importing your spreadsheet (CSV)

     1. Click on 'Choose file' under ‘Select CSV document’.
     2. Select your spreadsheet from where you stored it.
        
        

3. Link the columns of the spreadsheet to existing fields in Eduframe

Select the right existing field in Eduframe for each column of the spreadsheet you want to import. It is recommended to use similar naming for Eduframe fields and spreadsheet columns to not get confused. However, even if the name of the Eduframe field is completely different from the column in your spreadsheet, you can still link them to each other. If you do not select an Eduframe field, the import will ignore the specific column.

Below you will find more information about Eduframe acceptance criteria:

• If you use a checkbox for one of the fields, e.g. to register for a newsletter, you can use true or false, but you can also use '1' for true and '0' for false;
• Labels are case-sensitive: If you want to bulk import labels, make sure you use exactly the same labels as defined in Eduframe. Labels that do not match, will be ignored. If you want to add multiple labels per contact, use '|' to divide them. Example: Beginner | Advanced; 
• When adding a field with multiple answers, make sure you spell the answers exactly the same as the answers you used to the custom field, and if needed, divide them with '|'. Example: Software | Leadership | Education;
• If ‘Address’ is filled in, then ‘Street’ and ‘House number’ columns are not needed and vice versa. Example: If 'Address' is filled with 'Main Street 1', then Street will be filled with Main Street and house number with 1. Vice versa: if street is filled with Main Street and house number with 1, you don't have to enter an address anymore. If you fill in Street, then make sure you also entered a house number and vice versa;
• Country, City and Zip code/Postal code are required if other address fields are filled in. For country, use 2 letter ISO country code, e.g. NL for Netherlands (check here);
• State/Province is required if the country is US. For this, you use the 2 letter abbreviation (check here). 

            Some additional notes: 

• It is important that all custom fields, organizations and labels are created in Eduframe before you import new contacts. Non-existing elements will be ignored. 
• Headers and titles make it a lot easier to link the Eduframe field name with the name of the columns in the spreadsheet. If you indeed used headers or titles, then thick the box 'skip first line' in the below screenshot, so the first row will be ignored as being part of the import. 
  • The below screenshot shows the first 3 rows - the first row is the header/title, the second and third row are examples of contacts to import, to make it easier to match the right Eduframe fields to the spreadsheet columns. Other contacts from your spreadsheet are not visible in the below screenshot, but will be imported as well.

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

It is important to choose the correct separation character. If the import page looks like the screenshot below, try another separation character on the previous screen.

        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 something is not correct and 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, you can customise the columns. You can also delete this import, modify the spreadsheet and try again.

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. 

Note: When you are importing contacts with an organization, 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 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 organization name.  

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 in Eduframe. 
• 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 Contacts (in the global navigation menu) > Contacts
2. Search and open the specific contact
3. Click on the Security tab 
4. Check the text on the button under Password: 
   1. If it says 'Send login information', it means the contact has no account yet:
   2. If it says 'Reset Password', it 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.

One by One

A teacher is always a contact and never only a teacher.

You can create a teacher in two different ways. You always start by Contacts (in global navigation menu) > Teachers tab > click on + Teacher. Then, there are 2 options:

• Click on 'Create new teacher' and fill in the teacher fields and custom fields. Note that the contact (custom) fields cannot be filled here, but you can enter or adjust these fields if you open the contact in the contact tab. 
• Click on 'New teacher from existing user' and select the contact that you want to make a teacher. Teacher custom fields can be entered afterwards, if you click on the contact name in the tab Teacher.

Bulk Import with CSV

The teachers bulk import is very similar to the contacts bulk import.

1. Go to Contacts (global navigation menu)→ tab Teachers

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

3. Follow the same steps as described above for the bulk import of contacts. 

    The only difference is step 3, where you need to link other (custom) Eduframe fields to the CSV columns.

How to create new organizations?

Organizations can only be imported in Eduframe one by one.

To create an organization, follow the steps: 

• Click on the + Organization button 
• Fill in the fields. Also for organizaions, custom fields can be added in the settings. 
• Click Save (on top left of the screen)

More information

Click here for other Articles about Settings in Eduframe

Click here if you have any questions for support.