Add contacts to an event manually or via Excel import

Learn how to create contacts manually or upload them to your event with specific participant information using an Excel import.

In order to send your contacts an invitation message from your event, you must first add these contacts to your event.

You can decide individually which contact information you want to enter or upload for each contact from the outset.

Add contacts manually

To manually add a contact to your event, click on the “Contacts” menu item, which opens automatically when you click on “Guest management” in the navigation bar, then click on the plus symbol in the top right corner and select the option “Create contact manually.”

Enter the contact details manually in the open window. The tool will access the contact information fields you have defined.

If you have already defined mandatory fields here, you must also fill them in when manually creating a contact in order to be able to create it (example in the “Company” screenshot).

For multilingual events, the desired contact language must also be selected here.

If you want to add further information to the contact, you can select additional contact fields from the drop-down menu behind “Type to add more information fields” or simply create a new (user-defined) field by typing the desired name in the field.

The personal token of a contact is generated automatically, as described in detail here.

By clicking on “Add”, the contact will be added to your contact list and the information will be transferred.

Upload contacts via Excel file

To upload your contacts collectively in an Excel list, please prepare your list accordingly to the contact information fields you have defined as mandatory in your event and ensure that it meets the following requirements.

Preparation of Excel file

Please note the following points before importing:

• Accepted formats: XLSX, XLS, or CSV
• The Excel file must not contain any macros and must consist of only one worksheet. If your Excel list contains formatting, we recommend importing/copying the data into a new file without formatting.
• Each value (first name, last name, email, etc.) must be stored in an individual column in the Excel list.
• The first line should be a title line and not a contact, as it will not be transferred.
• E-mail addresses must not contain any special characters (e.g., ö, ä, ü) or obvious errors (e.g., no @ sign or a space).
• The participant's language can be imported using one of the following abbreviations. Upper and lower case letters are not important:
  
  • German: de, deu or ger 
  • English: en or eng
  • French: fr, fre or fra
  • Italian: it or ita
  • Spanish: es
• You can also import a contact's group directly. Please check that the group in the Excel file is named exactly as it is in the tool. If the system does not find a match, a new group will be created. If a contact is assigned to multiple groups, simply separate them with a comma (example: Standard, VIP).
• If you want to import your participants with a status (registered or declined) already assigned, you can do so using the following designations:
  
  • Confirmation:
    
    • registered
    • confirmed
    • angemeldet
  • Cancellation:
    • declined
    • deregistered
    • de-registered
    • abgemeldet
• You can import multi-select fields with multiple answers in the same way as groups. To do this, separate the answers with a comma and no space (example: Session 1,Session2).
• Currently, there are no date or time selection fields available in the registration form. For this reason, please ensure that you format the fields in your Excel file in “Text” format if you want to import a time or date of birth, for example. Otherwise, this information will be displayed as decimal numbers during import.

Import Excel

Under Contacts, click on the “+” icon in the upper right corner as described above and this time select “Upload contact list.”

Either search your computer for the desired list or drag and drop it into the pop-up window.

evenito validates your Excel list before importing it. However, checking extensive Excel lists can significantly slow down the import process.

By deactivating the check, your data can be imported more quickly. If your computer does not have good processing power but you want to upload a large amount of data to your evenito back office, you can activate the “Disable pre-validation” button before uploading.

Before importing, please make sure that the e-mail addresses and all other contact details are correct and stored in your Excel list as specified by you in the back office.

Assign or add new fields

After selecting your desired Excel list, all columns/content will be displayed in the upload window. The tool automatically assigns the contact information fields, provided that the column names match exactly with the contact information fields set up in the event.

Contact information fields that have not yet been created in the contact settings are ignored during this process and must be selected manually for each column in the upload window.

If you have not yet created the required field for assignment, you can either select one of the standard fields here or create a completely new, custom contact information field for your event by typing directly into the field.

If you have defined certain contact information fields as mandatory in your contact settings, these must also be assigned during the upload. They will be marked with an orange check mark in the drop-down menu if they have not already been assigned automatically or manually by you.

If you have entered answer options in contact information fields with the answer type “Single or Multi-Select”, these must also be named exactly as such in your Excel list. If the options you have defined in the event differ from this, they will be marked in red at the top of your upload window and an error message will appear.

Incorrect e-mail address formats (e.g., no @ sign, a space, or a missing .com) and language assignments (e.g., a discrepancy between activated event languages and contact languages to be uploaded) will also be marked in red.

To edit the incorrect data entries, please move the mouse over the incorrect information and click on the edit pencil that appears. Correct the data entry and then click on the check mark to apply the change. Repeat this process for all of your contact information fields marked in red.

If you do not want to upload a column from your Excel list and assign it to a contact information field, you can leave it blank and not assign it to a specific contact information field, provided that the field is not defined as a mandatory field. The column will then be excluded from the upload.

Complete import

Click on the “Submit” button to process the Excel file. The window shows you the status of your contact list.

Once the import is complete, you can finalize it by clicking on “Done.”

The contacts in the Excel list are now visible with the stored information under Contacts. If you need additional or different columns that you have just uploaded in your contact overview, you can customize the view yourself as described here.