How to import leads

This article is part of the Insightly Importing Guide

Because they require a few extra steps for importing, we've created this article just for leads. If you're importing other records or notes, take a look through our other importing articles for the one you need.

After you've prepared your file for importing, you can begin importing your records.

To import leads:

1. Go to the Leads page.
   
2. Click Import Leads in the right sidebar. (Click the Show Sidebar button if you need to open the sidebar.)
   
3. Select to import Leads from MailChimp or from a CSV file. In this example, we will import from a CSV file.
   
4. Click Select File and choose the CSV file you'd like to import. You may want to check your file and make sure it's properly formatted. Leads require a last name, so make sure that's included for each lead!
5. Insightly accounts with a Professional or Enterprise subscription plan have the option to set up lead assignment rules. Choosing a rule will distribute and assign leads to your sales team. As the leads are imported, each one will be compared to the criteria from the selected rule and assigned accordingly. 
   
   If you don't see this option, continue on to the next step.
6. Choose a user to assign the leads to. Insightly will assign leads to this user when you don't specify a responsible user's email address in the file.
   
7. Select the lead source on New Records for the import. Insightly will enter this source when you don't specify a lead source in the file.
8. Click Next.
9. Choose an import action.
   • Add New Records - Add new records and skip records that Insightly recognizes as duplicates.
   • Update Existing Records - Update records that match the Record ID field in your file. Skip all other records.
   • Add New Records and Update Existing Records - Update records that match the Record ID field in your file, skip duplicates, and add all other records.
   
10. Uncheck the next box if your file does not include a header row.
    
11. Click Next.
12. Insightly will display a column with the available Insightly fields, another with the headers from your file, and another displaying the first record in your file. The system will attempt to map your data to existing fields. Verify that the fields and data match up and, if necessary, choose from each list to import your columns into a different Insightly field.
    If you don't include a value for Lead Status, the default status from your System Settings will be applied.
    
13. Click Start This Import.
    

You will see a confirmation message as your file is successfully placed in the queue for importing. We'll send you an email within a few minutes letting you know when the process has completed and if there were any problems with the import.