Import Users in AcyMailing

Description

This screen enables you to import users from different sources.

AcyMailing keeps track of the subscription of your users and of their unsubscription! This way, even if you try to import twice the same users, AcyMailing will take care of the duplicate entries and won't subscribe an unsubscribed user again. Nevertheless, if you import the users to a newly created list, all the imported users will be subscribed to this list! You can still remove some users in mass based on their subscription status using the screen "Subscribe Users" from the Lists management.

If you want to subscribe users in mass to your Mailing Lists using filters, you should go to the screen "Subscribe Users" from the Lists Management.

How to access this screen

Import access

• Go on the AcyMailing users management

• Click on the button "Import"

Toolbar

• Import : If you click on this button, the users will be imported based on the options you chose.

• Cancel : Return to the Users management listing.

• Help : This button enables you to turn ON/OFF the help section, this screen will appear or disappear.

Source

Source

• Text Area : Instead of uploading a file, you can directly copy/paste your contacts in an input box and let AcyMailing import them.

• File : Import your users from a CSV or a text file.

• Joomla Users : Synchronise/Import your Joomla Users.

• com_contact : Import your users from com_contact. AcyMailing will import each contact using the name and e-mail specified in the contact manager.

• Database : If you have a table in your database with a list of users you would like to use, you can import them in AcyMailing

• Acajoom : Import your users from Acajoom You also have the possibility to import the Acajoom Mailing Lists in order to keep the subscription of your Acajoom users.

• ccNewsletter : Import your ccNewsletter Users

• Communicator : Import your Communicator Users

• jNews : Import your users from jNews You will see options to not only import your users from jNews but also import the jNews lists and Newsletters so you can easily migrate from jNews to AcyMailing.

• Vemod News Mailer: Import your users from Vemod News Mailer

• Letterman : Import your Letterman Users

• Yanc : Import your users from Yanc. You also have the possibility to import the Yanc Mailing Lists in order to keep the subscription of your Yanc users.

• CiviCRM : Import your users from CiviCRM.

• ZohoCRM : Import your users from ZohoCRM.

You won't see all those options on your interface but only the components installed on your website. So if you start with AcyMailing and didn't install any other component, the available choices will be to import data from a file, a textarea, database, com_contact, your Joomla Users or ZohoCRM. Only the database tables of the other component will be necessary... so if you moved your website to another server, you can copy your old component tables to see the import option.

Lists

Lists

AcyMailing will import users... Those imported users will be subscribed or unsubscribed to the selected lists.

AcyMailing keeps track of the unsubscription status of the user so that even if you import twice the same users on your lists, AcyMailing won't subscribe users who already unsubscribed.

No welcome message, nor confirmation message will be sent during this import.

If you created a follow-up campaign assigned to a list, you will see the "Subscribe + Campaign" option and if you select it, Acy will subscribe the user to your list and also trigger the campaign for the imported users.

Text Area

Textarea import

This option enables you to directly write a series of e-mail addresses in addition to as many fields as you want in this input and import them in AcyMailing. That will enable you to avoid any access rights or encoding issue you may have with the file import function.

Once you filled in the text area with your users data, click on the "Import" button, you will get to the second import page where you will find all the import options.

File

Import File

You can browse a CSV file to import it.

The first line of your CSV file can indicate AcyMailing the name of the fields to import (column names of the #__acymailing_subscriber table from the database if you want AcyMailing to assign them correctly). For example, if your file contains a list of users with the format "email,name,confirmed", this first line of your file should be "email,name,confirmed" (always in English).

If your file contains a list of e-mails (one per line!) and no extra information, simply add the string "email" at the top of your file and import it.

If you are not sure about your column names, simply try to upload your file and AcyMailing will allow you to assign the columns to the right Acy fields.

AcyMailing does not impose any CSV format and is able to import files with any kind of separator.

For the field confirmed, the values should be 0 (for not confirmed) or 1 (for confirmed). If you don't specify this column in your file, the default value is 0 (not confirmed). For the field html, the values should be 0 (receive Text) or 1 (receive HTML). If you don't specify this column in your file, the default value is 1 (receive HTML).

Example:

name,email john,[e-mail] adrien,[e-mail] mike,[e-mail]

If you have an excel file with all your contacts, simply add a new line at the top to indicate the column name (email, name...) and then save your file in a CSV format (Save as -> CSV). Then import your CSV file in AcyMailing. You can open your file with a text editor (notepad for example) to check if your file has the right format.

In some cases you want to import users and individually subscribe them to some lists. In that case you can add a column called listids in your import file. If you do so, you can then specify the ids of the AcyMailing lists you want the user to be subscribed to during the import.

Example: name,email,listids Adrien,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.,3 John,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.,8-4

So Adrien will be subscribed to list ID 3 and John will be subscribed to lists ID 8 and 4. If you want to subscribe them all to the same list, please remember you don't have to use this extra parameter!

You can also add a column called "listname" in your import file. If you do so, you can then specify the name of the AcyMailing lists you want the user to be subscribed to during the import. If the list doesn't exist yet, it will be automatically created.

Example: name,email,listname Adrien,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.,My list A John,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.,My list B - My new list C

So Adrien will be subscribed to list A and John will be subscribed to lists B and C. As the list C didn't exist yet, AcyMailing created it.

Once you selected your file, click on the "Import" button, you will get to the second import page where you will find all the import options.

Second import page

Assign columns

You will first have to assign (if it's not already done) the columns of your data taken from the text area/imported file.

You can either assign a column to an Acy field/custom field or create a new custom field with on column's values (only in AcyMailing Enterprise). You can also ignore some imported columns. If you have more than 5 imported columns, you will see a button below "Assign columns" that enables you to ignore all unassigned columns.

Params

• File Charset: We recommend you to import an utf-8 file but if you import another format, you can let AcyMailing handle the conversion in which case you should specify the encoding format of your imported file/text area data.

• Import the user as confirmed: If you require a confirmation in AcyMailing, then this option will be displayed if you try to import a file so you can decide if you want your users to be imported as confirmed users (so you will be able to send them an e-mail) or if you want the users to be imported as unconfirmed, in which case you could then send a confirmation e-mail to your unconfirmed users.

• Auto-generate user's name: If you import a file and the name field is empty, AcyMailing can automatically generate a name for each user (based on its e-mail address).

• Import users as blocked: You can choose to import the users as blocked or not.

• Overwrite existing user's information: By default (option turned OFF), if the user already exists (based on its e-mail address), the user information won't be updated. If you turn ON that option, the user's data will be updated so for example if you import a file including an existing user (same e-mail address) but with a new name, the user's name will be updated in AcyMailing.

Once you selected the options and assigned the columns as you want, click again on the "Import" button to import your users.

Joomla Users

Import Joomla Users

Using this option, AcyMailing will not only add your Joomla Users in the list of AcyMailing users, it will also synchronize its data based on the Joomla Users data.

This operation is already done during the install so you should not have to do it again. If you want your users to be automatically added in AcyMailing and subscribed to one or several lists during their Joomla registration process, please configure the Joomla User Synchronization plugin.

com_contact import

You can import your contacts from the default Joomla contact component in AcyMailing.

The name and e-mail of the contact specified in the com_contact component will be added in AcyMailing as a new user.

Database

Using this option, you will be able to import your contacts from any other table in your database.

Database import

• Table Name : You should specify in this field the name of the table you want to import

• email : This fields is a required field for the import process, you should specify the name of the column which contains e-mail addresses in your other table.

• name : If the other table contains the name of the user, you can import it as well. This field is not mandatory.

• .... you will be able to specify an equivalent for all your other fields but they are not mandatory.

Import from HikaShop

HikaShop uses the standard Joomla User table so you can use our default user plugin to display the lists on the HikaShop registration page and the user will be automatically subscribed to AcyMailing.

Nevertheless, if you use HikaShop without using the Joomla registration process, then the user won't have account and won't be added to your Joomla User table... so he won't be automatically added to AcyMailing.

You can nevertheless use this AcyMailing database import to import all your users from HikaShop to AcyMailing regardless of the fact they have an account on Joomla or not.

• Table Name : #__hikashop_user

• email: user_email

• name : column name of the custom user field in hikashop (not required)

Import from Prestashop

If Joomla and Prestahop are installed on the same database, you can import your Prestashop users using the parameters:

• Table Name: ps_customer

• email: email

• name: firstname

Import Prestashop

If Prestashop is not installed on the same database but your Joomla website is able to access this database, you can specify the table name: prestashopdatabase.ps_customer

Import from phpFox

If Joomla and phpFox are installed on the same database, you can import your phpFox users using the parameters:

• Table Name: phpfox_user

• email: email

• name: user_name

Import from phpBB

If Joomla and phpBB are installed on the same database, you can import your phpBB users using the parameters:

• Table Name: phpbb_users

• email: user_email

• name: username

Acajoom

Import from Acajoom

Acajoom, like AcyMailing, handles multiple Mailing List management. So, in order to not lose the subscription state of your Acajoom Users, we created a process enabling you to import your Acajoom lists in AcyMailing and keep the subscription state of each user. This way, you can safely move from Acajoom to AcyMailing without losing data.

If you select the option "Import the Acajoom Lists too", AcyMailing will re-create your Acajoom Mailing Lists in AcyMailing.

ZohoCRM

If you use ZohoCRM as your customer relationship manager, you can import your users from ZohoCRM to subscribe them to your AcyMailing lists and start sending messages to your contacts.

• Import the users as confirmed: If you require a confirmation in AcyMailing, then this option will be displayed so you can decide if you want your users to be imported as confirmed users (so you will be able to send them an e-mail) or if you want the users to be imported as unconfirmed, in which case you could then send a confirmation e-mail to your unconfirmed users.

• Overwrite existing user‘s information: If you set it to "yes" and you modified your contacts via ZohoCRM then your contacts will also be updated in AcyMailing.

• Delete users: This option will delete the users which are no longer in your ZohoCRM contacts. Only users previously imported from ZohoCRM will be deleted.

• Auth token: You should enter here your auth token that you can generate on your ZohoCRM account:

  1. Log in to Zoho CRM

  2. Open [Username] > My Zoho Account

  3. In the My Zoho Account page, click Active Authtokens In this page, you can also Remove or Regenerate Auth Tokens.

• Fields: You can attach ZohoCRM fields to AcyMailing ones. It will be useful if you created extra fields in AcyMailing. By default the first name in ZohoCRM is saved in the name field of Acymailing.

• Lists: For each type of user in ZohoCRM you should select an Acymailing list where all the users will be subscribed to. If you don't select an AcyMailing list for one ZohoCRM contact type, users belonging to that contact type won't be imported in AcyMailing.

• Subscribe the imported users to: All the users who have been imported from ZohoCRM will be subscribed in this list.

Facebook leads

If you created some ads on Facebook, you can use this option to import the users.

FB leads import

• App access token: You can generate a new access token on this page. By default, Facebook generates a short time token, click on the appearing "Debug" button to extend your token's lifetime.

• If some permissions are missing on the token you generated, you can go on the following page to manage them: https://developers.facebook.com/apps/ YOUR APP ID /marketing-api/tools

• Ad ID: You can find the ad ID on your ads management page. This field must be empty if you use the "Form ID" field.

• Form ID: You can use multiple forms for the same ad, use this option if you want to import only users collected with a specific form.

• Only leads created after: By default Facebook will return all leads generated from the beginning, we recommend specifying a date for this field

• Only leads created before: If you want to only import leads generated from the start of the ad to a week ago, use this option.

• E-mail: This field is mandatory and must refer to the email field you added in the ad. By default it is "email", so if you didn't modify it when creating your lead form just leave the default value.

• Name: This field is optional and refers to the name field of your ad. It is not possible to merge two fields (i.e first name and last name) for this field.

Outlook

You can export your contacts from Outlook and import them in AcyMailing as a CSV file.

• Select File -> Import and Export... from the menu.

Export Outlook step 1

• Select Export to a file and click Next.

Export Outlook step 2

• Select Comma Separated Values (Windows) and click Next.

Export Outlook step 3

• Select the Contacts folder and click Next

Export Outlook step 4

• Use the Browse... button to specify a location and file name for the exported contacts ("Outlook.csv" on our example) and click Next.

Export Outlook step 5

• Click on the Map Custom Fields ... button to export only the email and name field. You can export more fields if you added extra fields using AcyMailing Enterprise.

Export Outlook step 6

• • Click on the button Clear Map and then drag and drop only the necessary information: name and e-mail of the user. Be careful, the field e-mail must be the sub-category of the group e-mail, not the whole group of fields.

Export Outlook step 7

• Click Ok and then Finish to export your contacts.

• Open the exported file with a text editor (notepad) and make sure you exported the right information and the first line of your file is "name","email" (if not, modify it and save your file).

Frequently Asked Questions

My subscriber's name are truncated during the import - Special characters are not imported properly

Text can be truncated and special characters not imported properly if the file you submitted is not encoded as utf-8. The easiest way to solve that issue is to use the "import via text-area" method instead. If you know your file encoding, you could select that charset during the import and Acy will convert it automatically. Greek users, you should select ISO-8859-7 If it still does not work, you should open your file with a text editor such as notepad++ to convert it into utf-8.

Using AcyMailing Enterprise you can create as many extra fields as you want on the user profile. Once created, you can add these extra fields to your import file by adding the column name to the first line of your file:

name,email,phone,country John,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.,8390264,France Mike,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.,2907165,USA ...