When you create an import configuration, you are telling VerticalChange where to pull the data FROM in your spreadsheet, and where to PUT the data inside the system.
A configuration is something you can use over and over with different data. For example, you create a configuration for “Intake Assessment” – then, every time you get Intake Assessment data that you’d like to import, you just assign your new CSV file to the Intake Assessment configuration and you can import your data with the settings you already created.
Naming a Configuration
Navigate to the Configurations tab in the Data Imports section.Click on the + Configuration button.
You will be given the opportunity to name your configuration. Use as much detail as needed to distinguish one configuration from another.
Select Import Type
The system will then ask you to select the Import type. The following selections appear:
Contact – This is data associated with a contact form. It is data you enter when you create a new contact, and data that exists in the Details section of a client profile.
Program – This is data that is associated with services and is typically found in an activity form or an assessment form.
Contact Import
When you select Contact you will get the following options: Contact Type, and Source File.
By selecting a contact type, you choose whatever categories of contacts that you want to import from. In the system they are divided between “group” and “person”. Select the type that is connected to the data you are importing.
Next you will select the source file. This will bring up a list of files that have been uploaded into the Data Imports section. The CSV file you uploaded in the previous step should appear in this list. Select that file.
Press Save.
Program Import
When you select Program you will get the following options: Program, Form, and Source File.
In order to import data onto an activity or assessment form, you will need to select the Program that the form is associated with. Once you have selected a program, the Form list will populate with all of the forms available to that program. Select the form that you want to import data into.
If you are only importing program enrollments, you do not need to select a form.
Next, you will select the source file. This will bring up a list of files that have been uploaded into the Data Imports section. The CSV file you uploaded in the previous step should appear in this list. Select that file.
Press Save.
Configure data matching and updating
Once you press save you will be prompted to select options for these three questions:
Choose the method to lookup find or create contact
How would you like to handle updating existing contacts?
How do you want to update form data?
Choose a method to lookup find or create contact.
The Importer must be able to identify which record to merge data with inside VerticalChange. It looks for a matching piece of data in both data sets to make that decision.
You can use the VerticalChange UID that it has assigned to an already established contact.
You can import contacts with their own Unique ID, what is called an “External ID”. An External ID can be an ID already assigned to those contacts from another data system, or it can be something such as a SS#, which you have assigned to existing contacts (even if you import with an External ID, VerticalChange will still assign its own UID, giving this record 2 IDs)
You can import using names. This is an unreliable method, as there are often many people with the same name and you risk connecting the wrong data to the wrong people.
How would you like to handle updating existing contacts?
For most cases, you will select the first option, “Update existing contact data”.
How do you want to update form data?
This option is meant to accommodate program form data. You would only select the first option if you are importing data to an existing form with results already in the system. Something to note, however, is that the Importer will only update the most recent form. So if you have 4 “Health Day” activity forms for one client, only the most recent one will be updated with new data.
For Contact data, you must select the first option, “Update latest form data”.
When you have made your selections, press Save.
Field Mapping
The system will now ask you to map fields found on your Excel file to the fields present in the forms you are importing into in VerticalChange.
Each line indicates a field in the form to be mapped. To map a field you need to click on the small + symbol to the left of the form field name.
When you expand the form field, there will be a dropdown available of all the fields listed in your CSV file. You need to select which field maps to the associated field in VerticalChange. Once selected, you will see in the “Mapped" column, whether or not the field was successfully mapped or not.
You do not need to map every form field, only the ones you wish to import.
When you’re done mapping all the fields, press Save. Your configuration should now show up on the list of Configurations.
If you need to edit a configuration you can do that by clicking on the edit icon under “Actions”. If you need to update the mapping of a configuration, you can click the </> icon under the "Actions" column.
