Adding & Managing Contacts

In this article you will learn how to add and manage your contacts within the Textel Platform. It is important to note that there is currently no limit to how many contacts you can store in the platform.

Contacts Page Overview

The Contacts page is located in the header navigation under the Contacts menu. The page has a searchable table that displays your contacts and their information. It serves as a hub for managing your contacts and their information.

Within the paginated table, you will see the following columns:

  1. Number (This is the mobile number of the contact and is the ONLY required field.)
  2. First Name
  3. Last Name
  4. Email
  5. Created On Date
  6. List (the number of contact lists they are on)
  7. Consent Status (This represents the opt in/out status of a contact across all of the lines you have enabled for your company. Contacts who have opted out of messages for a line will no longer receive any messages from that line. Explicit Opt Ins are required to send out any Blast, outbound promotional messages.)

Searching Contacts

You can search the contacts using the search box at the top of the table. The searchable fields are the first four columns: 

  • Number
  • First Name  
  • Last Name
  • Email Address

Add Individual Contacts

To add a new contact, simply click on the "New Contact" button at the top of the Contacts page. It will open up a modal form with fields to fill out. NOTE: The only required field to add a contact is the Mobile Number. You will not be able to add a contact without supplying a Mobile Number.

Mobile Number Editing

Once a contact is added with a mobile number, you will not be able to edit the mobile number for the contact. It is important to make sure the numbers are correct before adding or importing. If a contact gets a new number, you will have to create a new contact.

Editing Contacts

You can edit contacts through the user interface or via an import. Editing can be useful if you gather more information about your contacts like their name, email address, and notes. 

To edit via the UI, simply click on the Edit button next to the contact of choice. It will pull up a modal similar to the one to add a contact, only the stored information for that contact will be pre-populated in the form fields. As noted above, you cannot edit a contact's mobile number after it has been created. 

If you want to edit via an import, our system will use the Mobile Number as the identifier for the contact. If new or different information is provided in the import for that contact, we will update the contact record accordingly. Editing via the import can be really helpful when you want to edit details in bulk.

Importing Contacts

There are a variety of benefits of having an import contacts feature in the platform. Importing contacts allows you to quickly populate your Contacts book within our platform. You can use a file exported from another system, or simply an excel file that you may already be using to keep track of your contacts.

Import File Type

In order for our platform to import your contacts, your import file must be a .CSV file type.

To make importing easy, we allow you to map your CSV file columns to the appropriate columns our platform is expecting. This means you do not have to manipulate your CSV file to match our column headers or even remove extra columns of data prior to importing. We will provide you an option to map your file to our system within the import modal.

Import Your File

To start an import, simply go to the Contacts page and click the "Import" button.

This will open up the Import Contacts modal. The first thing we will ask if for you to upload your CSV file containing your contacts information. Browse to find the file on your computer, select it, and then click the Upload button.

Map the Data Columns

After you have uploaded the file, we will present you with the option to map your file's columns to the appropriate system columns we are expecting in the platform. On the left side, we display the columns of data our system is expecting. The dropdowns on the right side are populated with the column headers from the file you uploaded. Select the most appropriate column to map to the contact field. NOTE: The only column that is required to have a mapping is the Mobile Number. 

Mobile Phone Number Formatting

The Textel platform will automatically normalize multiple formats of phone numbers. This minimizes the need to manually edit your data prior to importing into our system. For a mobile number we will accept numbers:
  • With and without the 1 prefix
  • With and without dashes
  • With and without spaces
  • With and without parenthesis

 

Optionally Select a Contact List

The final step of the import process allows you to select one or more contact lists that the imported contacts should be added to. This allows you to not only import your contacts, but organize them using lists in the same action. 

Contact Import History

After importing a contact list, you can view the details of the import history in the system. To find this feature, click the “Contacts” drop down menu and select “Contact Import History”. This will show you the specific details of previous imports such as the import file name, the date it was put into the import queue, and the status of that import.  

Import Statuses 

  • Queued – Means it has been put on the queue for processing. 
  • Running – Means that the import is currently processing and adding contacts. 
  • Completed – Means the import was successful. 
  • Partial Failure – Means some of the contacts in the import file did not get added. In these cases, a downloadable error file will be provided with details on how to correct the data. 
  • Failed – Means the import did not get processed. This typically means there is an issue with the file itself or a system issue. 

Some large import files may take a few minutes to upload before they can be viewed in the contact lists, the status will display the current state.

Exporting Contacts

We provide two ways to export contacts from our platform. The first is an Export All option that exists on the Contacts page in the top right corner of the page. Clicking on this button will export all of the contacts in your account.

For a more targeted export approach, you can export contacts using the Contact Lists page. Next to each Contact List on that page, there is an Export button. Clicking that Export button will only export the contacts who are associated to that Contact List.

Adding to Lists

We cover organizing your contacts with lists here, but in short it can be incredibly helpful to group contacts into lists. You can create lists for various purposes, making it easy to understand who your contacts are. This is a feature that is incredibly useful with our Blast tool. There is no limit to the number of lists a single contact can be on.

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