How to import multiple notes for contacts

[MWilson1]

Hello

We are a small company looking to transition to the free HubSpot platform but are struggling with imputing notes.  I am not very tech savvy so any help would be greatly appreciated. 

Our current CRM provider has asked for a template CSV file so that they can lay the data out in a way that will easiest to import.  The two problems I am having is creating a template that can add multiple notes for a contact & add notes against a company account without adding to contacts only.  I am sure that it is probably a simple answer but I am struggling to find it.

Using the technique above I can add multiple notes to a contact but I have to add each note as a separate CSV file which when we have 100's of notes against a single contact is not going to be possible.

Any advice on where I am going wrong would be much appreciated. 

Thanks

Reply

0 Upvotes

[#2]

Hello

We are a small company looking to transition to the free HubSpot platform but are struggling with imputing notes.  I am not very tech savvy so any help would be greatly appreciated. 

Our current CRM provider has asked for a template CSV file so that they can lay the data out in a way that will easiest to import.  The two problems I am having is creating a template that can add multiple notes for a contact & add notes against a company account without adding to contacts only.  I am sure that it is probably a simple answer but I am struggling to find it.

Using the technique above I can add multiple notes to a contact but I have to add each note as a separate CSV file which when we have 100's of notes against a single contact is not going to be possible.

Any advice on where I am going wrong would be much appreciated. 

Thanks

[ARichmond]

Hi

I was also looking for the answer to this question, so thank you both. Will this also work for last contact and next contact?

Thanks

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @MWilson1,

Importing anything else than a single object can be a bit tricky – but let's try and come to a solution for you.

If you have more than one note per contact, that eliminates all options for importing but one: importing multiple objects in two files.

---

When importing and associating in two files, each file represents an object. To identify which records should be associated across the files, include a common column in both. One of your files should have a unique value for each row in this column. In the other file, use those values to indicate which record each row should be associated with.

---

During the import process, select Multiple files with associations, then Contacts and Notes. You now have to provide two files.

The first file contains the contact information. This is – at a minimum – either the Contact ID or the contact Email. Each row in this document corresponds to a contact.

The second file contains the notes. You should have the Activity date and Note body here. Each row in this document corresponds to a single note. If a contact has multiple notes against them, these would still be multiple rows. These rows would have different activity dates and note bodies but the same email address as a unique key (see next paragraph).

Both files also need a unique identifier. This is a key that allows HubSpot to match an activitiy to a contact. This could be anything, a number, a word – or, probably easiest, the contact Email. Getting your file in this format is probably the hardest part. (Fore more info on import file setup, check this article. Unfortunately it doesn't have example files for contact/notes import but you might still find it helpful.)

If you do this correctly, HubSpot will show you this in the next step:

---

Your files share column headers in common. These will tell HubSpot how to associate your data. Choose which common column you want to use to associate your data.

---

You can now proceed and select the column that has the unique key to associate the contacts file with the company file. The rest of the steps should be intuitive.

Hope this helps!

[MWilson1]

Hi Karsten

Doing it this way did seems to work for getting the notes across, however, it didnt tranfer the contact/copmany details easily.  Would I be best to import all the contact/company information first and populate the CRM and then import the notes sepratley once the contacts are there?  

Thanks again, I appreciate that these are probably basic questions.

Thanks

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @MWilson1,

Not basic questions at all! Yes, you could import this information in subsequent batches, for example contacts and notes first, then contacts and companies.

HubSpot will deduplicate contacts during import by email address.

Hope this helps!

[MWilson1]

Hi Karsten

This seems to work well.  Its a little more hassel but a good solution to getting a lot of history and notes against one contact.

Thanks again

[MWilson1]

Thanks for the quick reply Karsten, I will have a look and let you know how I get on.