You can import contacts into this system from any other contact management system that can export a comma delimited CSV file. A comma separated values (CSV) file is a standard format for transporting data from one application to another. In a CSV file, each data field, or value, is separated by a comma, allowing another program to read through that file and pick out each data value between the commas. To import contacts from other contact managers and CRM systems, or from databases like Access or Filemaker, please consult their Help documentation information about exporting a CSV file from your application. Remember to treat your email addresses politely. Just because you have their address does not mean they specifically requested to receive commercial messages from you (opted-in).
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Select .csv file
Choose Import from file from the PoliteMail menu.
This will open the Import Contacts window. Type in the name of your file, or click Browse to find it.
When you import data from a CSV file, you must tell the system which piece of data is what. Sometimes in a CSV the first line will contain field names which label the data to follow. As you don’t want to import these field names, you need to check this box.
The system will attempt to make an educated guess; for example, if it sees the text “email” in the first line of the import file, then it will decide that the first line is most likely field names, and will attempt to align them. You must check these to insure the data you are importing goes where you want it. If there are no field names, then you must align the specific data elements. For example, if you see “Joe” in the data, you would select the field “First Name” for it. If a data is blank and you are not sure what field it is supposed to be, you can page through the import file one record at a time to see more records to figure out what the data is.
Helpful hints for aligning data
- If the first and last names in your imported data are combined into one line, select “Display Name” for the field.
- Only the “Street Address” and “Notes” fields will accept multiple pieces of data. If you attempt to do this in other fields, the system will ask you to remove the duplicate field selections.
“## records could not be imported”
Sometimes not all of the records from a CSV file will be able to be imported, and you will get a notice which says “## records could not be imported.” Usually this is due to an invalid email address, or some other format problem in the data. You can elect to either ignore these records, or save the problematic ones to a separate file, and import the rest. If you save the file, you may edit the data in Excel or Notepad, and look for invalid email addresses first. You might find a comma instead of a period (name@domain,com) or a space (my name@domain.com) where they don’t belong. You may fix this data and then report the edited file.
Set Contact Properties
When you import contacts into the system, you can automatically group them by assigning properties. You can set the contact type, set the contact owner, add the imported contacts to an existing mailing list, or create a new shared or private mailing list for this group. 
Once they are in the system, you can decide how you want to share these contacts with the other users. All the contacts on a specific import can be assigned a contact type, for instance, customers or prospects. Creating contact types allows you to view all contacts of the same type in separate lists. If you want to set different types for different segments of the same import, you have two options:
When you import a set of contacts, you can automatically organize them into accounts, based upon either the company name field or the email domain. For example, when the company field is “IBM” or the domain is “ibm.com” then those contacts would be added to your IBM account record. You can always add or remove contacts to accounts at any time outside of the import process.
Setting a contact owner for the import marks that person as responsible for that name. If the contact already exists in the system with a different owner, the new mane will be added as a sub-owner. Ownership is not necessary, but useful in some situations. When you want to send a mailing from the person most closely connected to this contact, you may use the system to "send from owner". If the contact is "shared with permission," the owner is notified and has to click "yes" before a non-owner can see or send email to that person through the system. This is helpful when sales people want to protect their leads, but include the contacts the system.
All the contacts in this import can also be added to an existing mailing list, by choosing a list from the dropdown box or put into a new mailing list by simply typing a name for the list in the text box next to that option. If you want to a new mailing list for only your use, click the Private list button; otherwise the list will be available to anyone in your users' group.
Delete Duplicate Records
This system allows one unique email address per contact, so when duplicate email addresses are found, you can choose either to update existing contacts or only import new contacts.
Review the import list, uncheck the contacts you do not want, and save the import.
Your contact are now in the PoliteMail system.