If your customers file already holds an email address or a phone number for each customer, Kolleno can turn those columns into a contact on each customer. The contact is kept in sync with your file every time a customers file is imported, so you do not need to send the same details again in a contacts file.
This article covers the CSV connector via SFTP. For the format of the customers file itself, see Data for Kolleno CSV Connector via SFTP.
How it works
For each email column you choose, Kolleno keeps one contact per customer.
The contact belongs to the customer, not to the email address. When the address changes in your file, the same contact is updated rather than a new one being added.
Customers that share an email address each get their own contact.
A cell can hold several addresses separated by commas or semicolons. They all go on the same contact, and any invalid address is dropped.
The contact can also get phone numbers from other columns in the same file. See Phone numbers below.
If the email cell is blank or holds no valid address, the contact's email is cleared. The contact stays active if it has a phone number from the file. If it has no phone number either, it is marked inactive. When a valid address or a phone number appears again, the same contact is reactivated.
A customer with no email address and no phone number in the file gets no contact until one appears.
Phone numbers
For each email column, you can choose one or more columns that hold the contact's phone numbers, for example billing_phone and billing_mobile.
Each phone column gives the contact one phone number. Put one number in each cell. To send two numbers, use two columns.
When the number in a cell changes, the old number is replaced. When the cell is blank, its number is removed.
A cell with no digits, such as N/A, is ignored.
If two columns hold the same number, the contact gets it once.
Write each number with its country code, for example +1 212 555 0100. A number without a country code gets the country code of the customer's country. If the customer has no country, it gets the country code of your company's country.
Do not add an extension to the number.
Phone numbers that someone adds to the contact in Kolleno are kept. The import changes only the numbers that came from your file.
Set it up
1. Add the columns to your customers file. Use any column name that follows the usual rules (lowercase, no spaces), for example billing_email. You can add more than one email column, such as billing_email and statements_email, and each one becomes its own contact. To give a contact phone numbers, add a column for each number, for example billing_phone.
2. Ask us to switch it on. Contact our support team or your Customer Success Manager with these details for each email column:
Setting | What it controls | Example |
Column | The column in your customers file that holds the email address. | billing_email |
Contact name | The name shown on the contact. Put a customers file column in curly braces to fill it in for each customer, or use fixed text. Names longer than 100 characters are shortened. | {name} gives each contact its customer's name. Accounts Payable gives every contact the same name. |
Primary | Whether the contact is the customer's primary contact. | Yes or No |
Phone numbers | Optional. The columns in your customers file that hold the contact's phone numbers. Each column gives the contact one number. | billing_phone, billing_mobile |
3. Send your next customers file. The contacts are created when it is imported. If your customers file always includes every customer, we can also re-process your latest file so existing customers get their contacts right away.
Example
With the column billing_email, the contact name {name}, Primary set to Yes and the phone number column billing_phone, this customers file:
id | name | currency_iso | billing_email | billing_phone |
C001 | Acme Inc | USD | +1 212 555 0100 | |
C002 | Globex | USD | (blank) | |
C003 | Initech | USD | (blank) | +1 312 555 0199 |
C004 | Hooli | USD | (blank) | (blank) |
gives these contacts:
Customer | Contact name | Email address | Phone number | Status |
Acme Inc | Acme Inc | +1 212 555 0100 | Active, primary | |
Globex | Globex | None | Active, primary | |
Initech | Initech | None | +1 312 555 0199 | Active, primary |
Hooli | None | None | None | No contact yet, as the file has no email address or phone number for it |
If a later file changes Acme's billing_email to finance@acme.com, the existing Acme Inc contact is updated to the new address. If a later file changes Acme's billing_phone, the old number is replaced with the new one. If both cells are left blank, that contact is marked inactive.
Good to know
Your file is the source of truth for these contacts. Their name, email address, primary status, active status and the phone numbers from your file are updated from your customers file on every import, so changes made to them in Kolleno are overwritten. Phone numbers that you add to these contacts in Kolleno are not changed. To change one of these contacts, change your file.
Only customers in the file being imported are updated. Customers left out of a file keep their contacts as they are.
These contacts are separate from the ones in your contacts file, which keeps working as before. If you send the same address or phone number in both files, the customer ends up with two contacts for it, so send each address and number one way only.
If you stop sending a configured email column, or rename it, its contacts lose their email address at the next import. A contact that has no phone number from the file either is marked inactive.
If you stop sending a configured phone column, or rename it, its numbers are removed at the next import.
Let us know before you rename a column so we can update the setting.
If we remove an email column from the setting, the contacts it created stay as they are.