Why is my CSV file not imported correctly?

If you have made an import and when you check the report from "Configuration - Notifications - Imports" you see that the contacts have not been added, it is because your file is not quite correct.

Below, we will help you to understand and solve the possible problems that can occur during the import of contacts due to possible errors in your CSV file.

First of all, make sure that the file is in comma delimited CSV format. The platform will not accept any other format. If you are working on a Mac you will need to save your file in .CSV format for Windows.

The content of some cells contains line breaks

If the file contains cells with line breaks, the import may fail. In that case, here is a quick solution: In the Excel document we will do a "Find and replace". In "Search" we will press CONTROL + J and we will leave the "Replace" field empty so that it replaces it with nothing:

Once this is done, save the document in CSV format and do the import again in the Acrelia News platform.

The content of some cells contains commas (,) and/or inverted commas ("")

If the file contains cells with commas or inverted commas, it is possible that the platform will not be able to import the file correctly. In that case, here is a quick solution: In the Excel document we will do a "Find and replace". In "Search" first we will put (") and in "Replace" we will not put anything. Click on "Replace all" and all inverted commas in the file will be removed.

Once all the inverted commas have been removed from our document, we will do the same process, but in "Search" we will put (,) and in "Replace" we will not put anything either. Click on "Replace all" and all the commas in the file will be removed.

Once this is done, save the document (remember that it must be in CSV format) and do the import again in the Acrelia News platform.

The file encoding is not correct

The encoding of the file you import must be UTF-8, so you will get that accents and other characters of your language are incorporated correctly. You can change the encoding, for example, using the free program Notepad ++. Open the file with this programme and in the "Encoding" section select the option "Encode in UTF-8".

You also have the option of opening the file with Notepad and saving the document by selecting the option "UTF-8" in the "Encoding" drop-down menu. 

The file has a header in the first few lines.

Sometimes the file contains, for example, images or information that we do not want to import and that make it impossible to import correctly from the database. For example, the logo of our company or the name of the database.

In this case, we must delete all the rows that contain this type of unauthorised content and leave only the rows with the names of the fields and with the content that we want to import.

Two email addresses in the same cell or in different columns

The email field cannot contain more than one email address.

If you have two email addresses in the same cell, you must either delete one of the two addresses or duplicate the row if you want to add both, leaving one address in the initial row and adding the other address in the new row you have created.