How to Import Contacts and Members

You can import contacts into Recrevio CRM using a CSV file.

The same import can also be used to create members in bulk, assign them to Member Groups and optionally give them a password.

Contacts are the foundation of the CRM. Subscribers and members are both contacts with additional status or access.

You can therefore use the same sample import file for all types of imports:

Download Recrevio Import Sample

Most fields are optional.

Contacts, Subscribers and Members

It helps to understand the difference:

Contacts

Anyone stored in your CRM. Customers, leads, members and other people can all exist as contacts.

Subscribers

Contacts who have opted in to receive marketing emails.

Members

Contacts with a member account that allows them to log in and access protected content such as courses, communities, memberships or other member areas.

A person can be all three at the same time.

What Is Required?

For a standard contact import, the only required field is:

• Email

Email is the unique identifier Recrevio uses for contacts.

Everything else is optional.

A basic contact import can therefore be as simple as:

Step 1: Prepare Your CSV

Export the contacts from your previous platform and open the file in Google Sheets or Excel.

You can use our Recrevio sample as a reference:

Recrevio Import Sample

Only keep the fields you need.

The sample contains examples for:

• contact information
• address information
• UTM attribution
• consent fields
• custom properties
• tags
• membership creation
• Member Groups
• Member Password

Standard Field Formats

Use the following formats when preparing the file.

For detailed examples of standard and custom fields, see the sample file.

Custom Properties

If you want to import information that does not have a standard Recrevio field, create a matching custom property first.

Go to:

Contacts > Properties > Create Property

You can create:

• One Line of Text
• Email
• Phone
• Number
• True or False
• Date
• List

Then map the matching CSV column to that property during import.

Importing Contacts

For ordinary CRM contacts, you can import:

• Email
• Name
• Phone
• Address
• Company information
• Tags
• UTM information
• Custom properties
• other supported CRM fields

You do not need to create the contact as a subscriber or member.

This means you can safely import customers, leads and other people into your CRM even if they have not opted in to marketing emails.

Being stored as a contact does not by itself mean the person is an email subscriber.

Creating Members During Import

You can also create member accounts in bulk.

The relevant import fields are:

Registered or Create member

This tells Recrevio to create the contact as a member.

Use:

1 och TRUE

to create a member.

The field can be mapped to Create Member during import.

If you are importing ordinary CRM contacts only, you can leave this field out.

Member Groups

Use Member Groups to give imported members access to the appropriate membership groups.

Multiple groups should be comma-separated.

Example:

Program,Membership

The group names should correspond to Member Groups available in your Recrevio project.

Member Password

You can optionally provide a password for each member during the import.

Example column:

Member Password

This allows the imported member to log in directly using:

• their imported email address
• the password you supplied

The member can then change their password from their user profile.

This field is optional.

If You Do Not Import a Member Password

If you create the member without setting a Member Password, Recrevio does not automatically send a password-reset email as part of the import.

In that case, you can send the imported members an email with instructions to:

1. Go to your website's sign-in page:

   yourdomain.com/signin

2. Click Forgot password
3. Enter the same email address that was imported
4. Follow the password-reset email
5. Choose their own password
6. Sign in

This is often a good option if you prefer members to create their own passwords instead of distributing passwords manually.

Member Import Example

A simple member import could look like:

You can omit Member Password if you want members to choose their own password through Forgot password.

You can also omit Member Groups if the member does not need to be assigned to a group during import.

Importing Does Not Automatically Make Someone a Subscriber

Creating a contact or member does not mean that the person has opted in to marketing emails.

Only add people to subscriber lists if you have permission to send them marketing communication.

For people who have opted in, you can separately import or add them under:

Marketing > Lists & Subscribers

This separation allows you to keep all customers, members and leads in your CRM without treating everyone as an email subscriber.

Mapping the Import

When you upload the CSV, Recrevio lets you map each column to the corresponding CRM field.

For example:

Name  → Name

Email  → Email

Phone  → Phone

Business Type  → Business Type custom property

Registered  → Create Member

Member Groups  → Member Groups

Member Password  → Member Password

Tags  → Tags

Fields Recrevio recognizes may be matched automatically.

Review the mapping before completing the import.

You can skip any column that you do not want to import.

Existing Contacts

Email is the unique identifier.

If an imported email address already exists in the CRM, Recrevio updates the existing contact instead of creating another contact with the same email address.

Filled imported fields can overwrite corresponding existing values.

Empty imported fields do not overwrite existing values.

Multi-value data such as Tags is added to existing values rather than replacing it.

System Metadata From Exports

If you export contacts from Recrevio, the file can contain additional platform metadata such as:

• Created On
• Registered On
• Approved
• Subscribed

These values are useful in exports and reports, but they are not necessarily normal CRM properties that can be mapped back during an import.

You generally do not need them in an import template.

The fields relevant to actually creating members are instead:

• Registered
• Member Groups
• Member Password

If you need to preserve historical dates from another platform, create your own custom Date property and import them there.

For example:

Original Registration Date

Troubleshooting CSV Files

If the import appears to complete successfully but contacts are not created, check the actual CSV formatting.

Common causes include:

• invalid phone formats
• incompatible date formats
• text in numeric fields
• malformed CSV structure
• unusual file encoding
• inconsistent delimiters

A simple fix is often:

1. Upload the original file to Google Sheets
2. Review the values
3. Choose File > Download > Comma-separated values (.csv)
4. Import the newly exported CSV into Recrevio

Also try importing only Email and Name first. If that works, add additional fields back after correcting their formatting.

Sample Import File

You can use the same file as the starting point for:

• contact imports
• subscriber imports
• member imports

Download Recrevio Import Sample

The file intentionally contains more fields than most imports will need.

Email is the only field you always need.

Keep the columns relevant to your situation and skip the rest during mapping.