If you want to use doo to create a personalized booking path or to send an e-mail message to existing recipient lists, the corresponding data must be added as doo contacts in the first step.

If you want to add new contacts to your contact center, go to Contact in the left menu and click on Manage contacts.

You now have the option of importing contacts via a file upload, creating individual contacts yourself or adding them as part of a booking.

You can find out how to manage existing contacts and contact groups here.

1. Import contacts 
2. Add contacts manually 
3. Add contacts through booking 
4. Create new data fields manually 

1. Import contacts  

1.1 Select a CSV file

As a Pro or Enterprise user you can upload contact lists from your computer to your doo Event Manager as a CSV file. If, for example, you have an Excel list with contact data, all you need to do is save it as a CSV file and import it. You can download a template here (currently only available in German).

Your CSV file must meet the following requirements for a successful import:

• If you have the required permissions and plan to send email messages to your contacts with the doo email manager, please add a column "E-Mail-Abo Veranstaltungskommunikation" to your list and enter a "1" for the respective contacts.
  
• You can add any number of columns to your table and create new data fields for your doo contacts (e.g. position, industry, member status, etc.). Important: Once created, these data fields can no longer be removed. 
• The values in the cells must not contain commas.
• Only "Dr." and "Prof." are currently permitted in the "Title" data field, while only "Mr." and "Mrs." are permitted in the "Salutation" data field. There's a new feature to enable you to manage this contact data fields and provide more options since the 18th of November. For informations on how to add or delete options you can click here.
• The maximum number of characters in the cells of the standard fields Name, Organizer, etc. is 100.

After you have selected your CSV file during the contact upload, click on "Advanced Settings" to check whether the appropriate CSV encoding has been selected for your file. 

To ensure that the umlauts etc. are correctly adopted, we recommend using Windows as file type "CSV - Separator separated" and selecting the ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) encoding when uploading in doo. Mac users should save the file as "CSV UTF-8 (delimiter separated)" and select the encoding UTF-8 when importing into doo.

Wenn Sie die Checkboxen "Neue Werte als Antwortmöglichkeiten zu den Systemfeldern "Anrede" und "Titel" bzw. benutzerdefinierten Datenfeldern hinzufügen" aktivieren, werden im Falle von Datenfeldern des Typs "Auswahlliste" etwaige neue Einträge, die in der entsprechenden Spalte Ihrer Liste stehen, aber bisher nicht in der Auswahlliste des doo Kontaktdatenfeldes vorhanden sind, als neue Antwortmöglichkeiten hinzugefügt. Enthält z.B. Ihre Liste in der Spalte "Titel" nicht nur "Dr." und "Prof" sondern auch "Dipl.-Ing." oder "Prof. Dr.", so würden diese Bezeichnungen automatisch dem Dropdown hinzugefügt, das Ihnen in den Kontaktdetails und Ihren Buchern in der Registrierungsmaske als Auswahl angezeigt wird. Ihre Kontaktdatenfelder können Sie selbstständig auch im Nachhinein anpassen - wie das geht, erfahren Sie hier.

1.2. Identification of contacts

In the next step you can define the identification characteristic ("unique definer"). 

Specify which data field is to be used to check whether a contact already exists in doo or whether it is to be newly created.

1.2.1. E-mail address

By default, the e-mail address serves as an identification feature for doo contacts. Accordingly, during contact import, the e-mail address is used to check whether a contact already exists. 

If yes, no new contact is created, but the existing contact is updated. If your list contains multiple contacts with the same email address, a new contact is created from only one of the records.

At the same time, selecting this identification feature means that only contacts with an e-mail address can be imported. If you want to create multiple contacts with the same or no e-mail address, you can do this using the External Customer ID (see b).

Use cases: This option is useful for contact lists in which each contact has an e-mail address and no e-mail address appears twice. 

1.2.2. External customer ID

You can also enter your contacts in doo using your own identifier, the "external customer ID". To upload contacts to doo in this way, your list must include a corresponding column with a unique customer number for each contact. As an external customer ID, you can, for example, use existing IDs from your CRM or alternatively assign consecutive IDs to your contacts yourself. Please make sure that each contact has a unique ID that is not assigned to any other contact and that you keep this ID assignment for future uploads.

Use cases: This option is recommended if the contacts come from another system, such as a CRM, and already have a system ID that you also want to use in doo. It also offers a solution for use cases in which contacts without e-mail addresses or several contacts with the same e-mail address are to be created in doo.

1.2.3 doo contact ID

If you want to re-import a list that you previously exported from doo to update the records of existing doo contacts, you can also use the doo contact ID. Your contact list must contain a column with the corresponding doo contact ID, which you have previously exported from doo.

Use cases: The upload via the doo contact ID is useful if no new contacts are to be created in doo, but only existing contacts are to be updated.

1.3 Assignment of data fields

After you have selected an identifier, you will find an overview of all the data fields to be imported from your table below. Check whether all recognized fields (i.e. the column names of your contact list) have been assigned to the correct doo data field and define new names for newly created data fields (see also 1.4.). Please note that newly created data fields cannot be changed or deleted afterwards.

1.4. Choosing the contact group and how to deal with duplicates

Under Select Group you can decide whether the contacts should be added to an existing group or whether a new group should be created. Then determine how to proceed with duplicates: Should only newly created data fields be added? Do you want all data fields of existing contacts to be updated? Or should existing contacts not be changed at all?

1.5. Start the import

Then you can start the import by clicking Import contacts and you will be redirected back to your contact center to the corresponding group. Depending on the number of contacts to import, it may take a few minutes for them to appear in your contact center. After the successful import, you will receive an e-mail notification. If contacts from your list have not been imported successfully, you can see from the CSV file that came with the import which contacts are affected and the reason for the failed upload. Edit your original list accordingly, e.g. by removing duplicates or changing unaccepted inputs, and upload the edited list again to the existing group as part of a new import.

You will then find all successfully imported contacts under the Contacts tab in the corresponding group, where you can make any necessary adjustments. 

2. Add contacts manually 

To create a new contact in doo, enter email address, first name, last name and additional information such as address or additional comments. Afterwards you can select whether you want to add the contacts to an existing group or create a new group. If you want to contact that email address with the doo email manager, you should also check the checkbox "event communication", and then click Create contact.

3. Add contacts through booking 

For every new booker (and every attendee with e-mail address) a new contact is automatically created in doo. You can also add a person to your contact center by manually registering for an event. After clicking Add contact through booking, select the event and follow the booking process. After successful booking, a new contact will be created at booker level from the data entered. Further information on manual registration can be found here.

4. Creating new data fields manually 

When importing contacts, a new data field can be created in doo for each additional column in the recipient list, such as position, telephone number or industry sector, in order to store further information for the contact in doo. These data fields can also be created manually by clicking on Manage contacts in the contact center and then on Create new custom field. Please note that the creation of data fields cannot be undone!

Enter a name for the data field (in the example: telephone number) and select the required data field type:

• By selecting Free text short / long, you can store a simple text entry in the data field.
• In the Selection list type, you can choose between the options you have specified and store them accordingly for each contact.
• The data query can also be provided with a Checkbox, e.g. to mark contacts with a certain property.
• The data field File allows you to add individual documents for each of your contacts. An example would be a proof of industry affiliation or a matriculation certificate for students.

All created data fields are then displayed on each contact detail page and the details can be edited there individually for the contact.

If you want to fill or update the data fields of several contacts at the same time, you can do this during the contact import (see 1.).