Import, review and clean a contact list in 6am

Turn a reviewed source list into reliable contacts in the correct 6am workspace. Prepare the data, validate a pilot, import controlled batches, then resolve exceptions using individual editing and duplicate review.

• Outcome: Each source row is reconciled to a saved contact or an explicitly held exception; verified duplicates have an audit trail.
• Responsible: A workspace administrator or member with tenancy: manage contacts permission, supported by the source owner for identity decisions.
• Tools: 6am dashboard, a private working spreadsheet and the job evidence folder.

01. Prepare a controlled working list

1. Confirm the destination company and permission to use the source list. Preserve the original and record its origin and date. Keep contact data private.
2. Follow SOP 082 — Prepare and import contacts into 6am. Use one person per row and the supported fields: First name, Last name, Email, Phone, Company, Notes and native 6am Contact ID.
3. Classify each row as Create, Update or Hold. Record expected counts and reasons for holding uncertain identities. A name alone is not an import identifier. A GHL ID cannot be used as a 6am ID.
4. Resolve repeated email, phone and IDs across the full source, including different batches. The importer rejects all rows sharing an identifier within one file. Do not arbitrarily keep the first occurrence or combine different people sharing an inbox.
5. For existing duplicates already in 6am, use SOP 081 — Review and merge duplicate contacts before preparing updates to those records. Use the verified surviving ID and current identifiers afterward.
6. Export UTF-8 CSV files of no more than 2 MB and 500 contact rows, separated by comma or semicolon. Number batches and retain the exact CSV for each report. Prepare a small pilot with the cases the real list needs.

02. Choose the operation deliberately

Open Contacts → Import contacts, confirm Workspace, upload the CSV and verify each association in Match your columns.

Blank or unmapped CSV fields preserve saved values. Filled Notes replaces the whole note. In Edit, a blank field clears its value. Both editing and merging must retain at least one valid email or international phone. Importing and merging do not send messages, grant consent or start campaigns.

03. Validate the pilot, then process the batches

1. Follow SOP 083 — Import and update contacts from CSV. Click Review import; no contacts are saved at this stage.
2. Reconcile Create + Update + Unchanged + Rejected with non-empty CSV rows. Read all preview pages and each before/after value. Update-only batches must have zero creations. Confirm identity against the source, not only technical validation.
3. Download the row report and preserve it beside the exact source. Reports contain row numbers, results and reasons, not contact details; they are not backups of saved values.
4. Click Confirm eligible rows only when every eligible change is intended and the company is correct. Rejected rows are skipped. If contacts changed or the preview expired after 24 hours, generate and review a fresh preview.
5. Wait for Import completed. Open the pilot contacts, verify their native IDs and saved values, including preserved blank fields. Stop if the result differs from the plan.
6. Exclude successful pilot rows from later files and process the remaining batches using the same checks. Your recent imports shows your last 10 completed imports in this workspace, with UTC timestamps. Preserve each report rather than relying on that limited history.

04. Clean the exceptions in the app

1. Maintain a private exception register with source row, reason, intended action, owner and status. Do not count rejected or held rows as imported.
2. For an isolated wrong name, company, note, email or phone, locate the verified contact and use Edit. Check the native ID and all fields before saving. If another person changed the record while it was open, reopen it and review the current values.
3. For bulk corrections, prepare only the corrected subset and select Update existing contacts only. Prefer the native 6am ID, especially when both email and phone changed. Review a new preview before confirming.
4. If different identifiers point to different records, hold the row and verify identity. If they are the same person, use SOP 081; if they are different people, correct the source. Importing does not merge them automatically.
5. If an identifier was retired by a merge, check Merge history and use the survivor's current ID and identifiers. Retired emails/phones cannot be reused; the archived UUID is not redirected. Do not remove an ID just to force creation.
6. If a new person is legitimate but was rejected by update-only mode, place that reviewed row in a separate create-only batch. Do not loosen the mode for the whole correction file.
7. For an erroneous merge or wrong-workspace import, stop and give the workspace administrator the preserved source, report and relevant history entry. There is no automatic undo, contact export or bulk deletion in this workflow.

05. Reconcile and hand over

• Match each source row to its final outcome: created, updated, unchanged, resolved through a recorded merge, or held with a reason. A retry is an attempt on the same source row, not a new person; keep attempt reports separate from final row totals.
• Verify the saved details of affected contacts and the surviving ID after each merge. Record unresolved cases without claiming the list is fully clean.
• Save the original, reviewed CSVs, reports, decisions and references to merge history in the private job folder. Restrict access to authorized people.
• Hand over the workspace, final counts, unresolved exceptions and their owners. Do not claim marketing permission based on a successful import.

This editorial revision follows the implemented 6am screens. The workflow supports six editable contact fields, native IDs and human-reviewed merges; it does not import custom fields or automatically resolve identity conflicts.