You'll first need to have your contacts in a CSV (comma separated value) file. Excel and most other database tools will save any spreadsheet in this format for you.

Notes & Tips

To import your CSV file, go to Contacts / Import Contacts and select your CSV file.

Once you've located your CSV, hit Upload.
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This is an optional step to help keep things organised and easier to follow. When importing you can add Contacts into a Group (if you have multiple membership levels, consider using "one off" group names initially).

Using "one off" Group Names can make importing into Groups (and then, Bulk Importing into a Membership Level) easier and trouble free.

For example, if you import multiple member types into the single Members group, then you won't be able to differentiate between types when using bulk importing into Membership Levels.

So, consider naming your initial import groups a unique name, e.g. Import Life Members or Imported Members.

Then, the Bulk Import into the Membership Level can still add the Contacts to the appropriate "real" group, i.e. Members.

Tip: adding the word import to the start of your group name will help identify it later and allows you to delete the group after you're done with it keeping your groups nice and clean.

You'll then be prompted to match the fields in your file with fields that are in TidyHQ.

Tip: 'Use first row as header' This option ignores the first row of the spreadsheet. Use this if your spreadsheet has a header row with titles in it that you don't want imported as a contact. 

Notes & Tips

After you've matched all your fields and selected Import you'll be able to review your import by selecting 'Details' from the 'Recently uploaded' table.
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This step is important to check that all your contacts have been imported correctly. 

If you've imported your data and realised it doesn't all fit, you can "Roll Back" - this will delete all the information you've imported.
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Nice work! You've successfully imported your data.

To ensure accurate data, State / Region is handled as a dynamic dropdown field. To import State / Region data, you must also have the Country field mapped to data from your CSV. Without having Country data, State / Region data will not import correctly.
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When importing State / Region data, we will match data where possible. But if the State or Region is not spelled correctly, it will not get imported. 

When importing dates, it's important to have them in the correct format. Tidy supports dd-mon-yyyy (e.g. 28-Jun-1987) or dd.mm.yyyy (28.06.1987 when importing. If dates are not in the correct format, they will be ignored (if it appears like an impossible date e.g. 12/22/2019 - Tidy would ignore this as there's no such thing as a 22nd month) or imported incorrectly.
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If your year is formatted with just the last two numbers e.g. 17 instead of 2017, it will also import incorrectly - showing up as 0017.
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​Importing Phone Numbers
When importing phone numbers, using the core field (pre-defined by Tidy) for phone will apply the organisations country code to that number.

This allows for SMS functionality.
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We recommend assigning this field to mobile phone numbers from your spreadsheet and assigning land-lines, if you have them, to work phone.
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If you have a 'group of checkboxes' custom field set up, it's possible to import data into that field by separating the values with a semicolon ;
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For example, you have a custom field which lists the countries a contact has been to: 

custom field
name: Countries
choices: America, Australia, Canada, Ukraine

Contact, Bob, has been to two of those countries: America and Australia. To import that data into the group of checkboxes 'Countries' you would need to have the cell in the spreadsheet read 'America; Australia'.
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