Errors when importing Contacts with new Custom Property

[CMicules]

I'm trying to import a list of contacts that attended a recent webinar.
Some of the list (~300 contacts) already exist in my DB but I want to append to their contact records with a new Custom Property: Webinar Attendee. 

This new property is a single-line entry, and exists on the Contact Activity record.

My import .csv includes FirstName, LastName, Email, Company, JobTitle, and my custom property.

It doesn't seem to matter what I select with respect to "Do Not Overwrite" rows, as I've tried this multiple times with different checkmarks, but each attempt has only ever updated ONE record.
And in the error report, even rows that indicate Duplicate Unique Property Value don't actually exist in my DB. (Eg: John Smith, johnsmith@abc.com isn't a contact in my DB, but his record wasn't created in the import listing Duplicate Unique Property Value as the error).

The ideal state is I can use this new Custom Property as an updating field moving forward by overwriting with subsequent webinars and being able to see the field history for reference.

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong and any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Please and thanks,

[CMicules · Accepted solution]

@BenD @deepikaverma I figured it out!!

When creating my custom properties, I selected "Require unique values for this property" which was causing the error as everyone on the list had the same value in a field (the webinar identifier).

I removed those rules from the custom properies, tried the import again, and worked with zero errors!

Sigh of relief.

👍Thanks so much for chiming in and offering advice and guidance 🙂

Cameron

[deepikaverma]

Hi @CMicules 

Can you share the snapshot of the mapping screen? It seems weird that the custom property is not being updated through the import file.

[Ben_M]

There was another post I recently answered for someone on this same similar topic here if you want to reference ( https://community.hubspot.com/t5/Lists-Lead-Scoring-Workflows/quot-Has-Ever-Been-quot-for-Dates/m-p/... ). They are on Pro and while you are on Starter, you are farther from the true answer to this issue which lies in Custom Data Objects (CDOs) on the Enterprise Hubs.

In short, while you will get field history, that isn't reportable in any usable fashion. What you would be better off doing is just importing the records of the event as a whole and moving all of those contacts upon import to a static list (ie: Event A Attendees, Event A No Shows, Event B Attendees, etc.). This will allow you to at least have the data in lists that can be used in segmentation or report on anyone who is a part of that list.

However, that may not resolve your list issue. You may want to post a sample of your list even if it's just sample data. It sounds to me as though something in your data is not right for the upload to work properly.

[CMicules]

Thanks for replying, @Ben_M 

I'm not as concerned about the historical reporting as I'd still be able to send emails to the Named List (I think).

It's really understanding what's going wrong with the import function.

Am I correct in assuming that:

• Even if John Smith (johnsmith@email.com) exists in my DB and the Custom Property of "webinar" is empty
• And I try to import a list that includes John Smith (johnsmith@email.com) with an entry in a column mapped to Custom Property
• And I select "Create and Update Records" 
• And I select "Do Not Overwrite" First Name, Last Name, Email
• But allow for Overwrite on "Custom Property"
• THEN the import should recognize the new field data and update the contact record with the Custom Property data?

If this is TRUE, then clearly I'm doing something wrong in my import file or import settings...

I can't really post an example of the file as it's LIVE data, but my fields are:

• First Name 
• Last Name 
• Email 
• Organization
• Job Title
• Custom Property 1
• Custom Property 2

OR could it be that I've set the custom property wrong? I selected the Custom Property "Webinar Attendee" and "Webinar Registered" as Contact Activity fields.

Would THAT be messing up my import?

[Ben_M]

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@CMicules wrote:

Thanks for replying, @Ben_M 

I'm not as concerned about the historical reporting as I'd still be able to send emails to the Named List (I think).

---

Correct - so long as you are adding them to a list when you import (or you can always do that later as well from the import screen.

---

@CMicules wrote:

Am I correct in assuming that:

• Even if John Smith (johnsmith@email.com) exists in my DB and the Custom Property of "webinar" is empty
• And I try to import a list that includes John Smith (johnsmith@email.com) with an entry in a column mapped to Custom Property
• And I select "Create and Update Records" 
• And I select "Do Not Overwrite" First Name, Last Name, Email
• But allow for Overwrite on "Custom Property"
• THEN the import should recognize the new field data and update the contact record with the Custom Property data?

---

Yes that is a correct assumption. Based on your initial post that only one record is getting in suggests to me that there is an issue with the CSV file and I suspect it is something in the first row or two of the data which is causing this. Hence why you get seemingly one row of data being updated.

The only other alternative coming to mind without seeing the data, but I would expect to show up in the error logs, is if you have bad data being imported such as a value that is outside of a picklist. On that note, what data type are the custom properties? Is it single-line text, picklist, etc.?

If you can share the first row or two, the community may be able to offer support and look into why data might not be getting imported. Beyond that I would say that due to the nature of your issue your best bet would be to bring in someone look at the data import file and examine it.