Importing Customers
If you already have a list of customers in a spreadsheet or another system, you can import them all at once. Attendara accepts CSV, TXT, and Excel files and walks you through a three-step process to map your columns and review the results before any data is written.
Supported file formats
- CSV / TXT — Comma-separated, semicolon-separated, or tab-separated text files. The delimiter is detected automatically.
- Excel (XLSX / XLS) — Microsoft Excel workbooks. The first sheet is used.
Step 1 — Upload your file
- Go to Customers and click Import customers.
- Click the file selector and choose your file.
- Attendara parses the file immediately. For CSV and TXT files, the detected delimiter (comma, semicolon, or tab) is shown on the next screen. For Excel files, the first sheet is read automatically.
Step 2 — Map columns and configure options
After the file is parsed, you assign each detected column to a data field using the dropdown selectors above the preview table. Attendara guesses the mapping automatically based on column headers — you can accept the suggestions or change them.
Available column mappings
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Skip | Ignore this column — its data will not be imported. |
| Name | Customer's full name. Required. |
| Customer's email address. At least Email or Phone must be mapped. | |
| Phone | Customer's phone number (include country code). At least Email or Phone must be mapped. |
| Notes | Free-text internal notes. Never shown to the customer. |
| Allow Transactional | Whether Attendara may send communications to this customer. Accepted values: true, 1, yes, y. |
| Preferred Medium | Preferred delivery channel: email or sms. |
| Preferred Language | Language code for notification templates (e.g. en, de). |
Preview and header options
- First row is header — When checked (the default), the first row is treated as column headers and excluded from the imported data. Uncheck this if your file has no header row.
- A preview table shows the first five data rows so you can verify the mapping looks correct before proceeding.
Duplicate handling
Use the Duplicate handling option to decide what happens when an imported row matches an existing customer (matched by email or phone):
- Skip duplicates (default) — The existing record is left unchanged and the row is counted as skipped.
- Update existing — The existing customer record is updated with the data from the file.
Validation
Attendara validates the mapped data before the import begins. If any issues are found (for example, an unrecognised value in the Preferred Medium column), they are listed on screen and the Import button is disabled until the problems are resolved — either by fixing the source file or by changing the column mapping.
Step 3 — Review results
Once the import is complete, a summary is shown:
- Created — New customer records added.
- Updated — Existing records updated (only when Update existing mode is selected).
- Skipped — Duplicates that were left unchanged.
- Errors — Rows that could not be imported, listed with the row number and reason.
What happens after import
Imported customers are immediately available in your customer list and can be matched to incoming appointments. The import itself does not trigger any notifications — notifications are only sent in response to calendar events.
Formatting tips
- Phone numbers — Include the country code (e.g.
+44 7700 900123). Without a country code, Attendara uses the country set in your Company Profile to infer the correct prefix. - Names — Full names are recommended. Titles such as Dr. or Ms. are preserved.
- Encoding — For CSV and TXT files, save as UTF-8 to ensure special characters import correctly.