Bulk import contacts from CSV in TatvaCRM
Step-by-step guide to bulk-importing contacts into TatvaCRM from a CSV or Excel file. Required columns, mapping, duplicate handling, owner assignment, and error recovery.
Bulk import is how you move an existing contact list — from Excel, WhatsApp Business export, an old CRM export, a trade-show attendee list — into TatvaCRM in one go.
Before you import: clean your file
Spend 20 minutes here. It saves hours later.
- Remove duplicate rows in Excel (Data → Remove Duplicates)
- Standardise phone formats (mix of with/without country code is fine — TatvaCRM cleans on import, but consistency is better)
- Fix obvious typos in email addresses (a Google Sheets formula spotting bad emails saves debugging later)
- One person per row — not one company with 4 contacts squeezed in
- Save as UTF-8 to preserve Hindi / Tamil / regional names
Required columns
At minimum, every row needs:
- First name (column header:
First Name) - Last name (header:
Last Name) - At least one of Email or Phone
Everything else is optional.
Step-by-step
- Go to Contacts → Import
- Upload your CSV or Excel file (up to 50,000 rows)
- Map columns. TatvaCRM auto-maps columns whose headers match (“First Name”, “Email”, etc.). For ambiguous ones, pick from a dropdown.
- Decide on duplicates:
- Skip duplicates — safest. Existing contacts untouched.
- Update existing — fill in blank fields on existing matches; never overwrite filled fields.
- Create anyway — import as new (creates duplicates; use only when you’re sure).
- Assign an owner. Either: all to one user, round-robin across a team, or leave blank (see warning).
- Preview the first 5 rows with mapping applied. Check that phone numbers look right, company names match, custom fields populated.
- Click Run import. Smaller imports finish in seconds; larger ones run in the background and email you when done.
own or team visibility scope cannot see them. The most common cause of “I imported 500 contacts but my team can’t see any” is forgetting this step.After the import — review the results
TatvaCRM shows you a summary: how many rows imported successfully, how many failed, and why each failure happened. Common errors:
- Invalid email format
- Phone number missing country code on certain rows
- Required field blank
- Picklist value not matching any allowed option (e.g. you used “Mumbai” in a city picklist that only allows specific cities)
Download the error report, fix in Excel, and re-import just the failed rows.
Undoing an import
For 30 days after any import, you can undo it. Go to Settings → Import history, find the import, click Undo. All contacts from that import get soft-deleted (they’re in the Recycle Bin if you change your mind again).
Recurring imports
If you import a similar file every month (e.g. a fresh list from your inside sales agency), save the column mapping as a template during the first import. Next time, applying the template auto-maps everything — you just upload and click run.
Common questions
“How big a file can I import?”
50,000 rows per file. For larger imports, split into batches — TatvaCRM processes them sequentially and detects duplicates across batches.
“Can I import custom fields?”
Yes — create the custom field first, then include matching column headers in your CSV. The custom field auto-maps.
“Can I use import to update existing contacts in bulk?”
Yes — choose Update existing during the duplicate handling step. Useful for refreshing addresses, updating job titles after a market-wide promotion cycle, etc.