How to Import Customers

How to import data to your Customer Database, Waitlist or Bookings

Lindsey Gagnon avatar
Written by Lindsey Gagnon
Updated over a week ago

If you already have a large amount of customer information that you would like to directly import into Waitwhile, you can do this via the Import button on the Customers page.

This will allow you to upload a CSV file of customer information with the following three import options:

Each import option requires a slightly different setup for your CSV file, which we will highlight here while including some examples.

Import to Customer Database

This should be used when you would like to import customer information but not automatically create a Waitlist or Bookings visit for those customers.

Because you're not creating an actual visit, you only need to provide basic customer information, so your CSV file should include columns labeled for NAME, EMAIL, PHONE, with optional columns for NOTES and TAGS. TAGS are more frequently used when actually attached to a visit, but you may want to use it here to indicate a FLAGGED customer.

NAME

EMAIL

PHONE

NOTES

TAGS

John Doe

12223334444

Any Text

FLAGGED

Once your CSV file has been successfully uploaded, the newly imported customers should show up on your Customers page.

Import to Waitlist

This should be used when you would like to import new or existing customers directly to your Waitlist.

This method creates a new "visit" record in which you can set the customer's POSITION in line, their current STATE (ie. WAITING, SERVING, COMPLETED, etc) and also include additional visit information such DATA_FIELDS, RESOURCES, or SERVICES.

POSITION

NAME

EMAIL

PHONE

NOTES

TAGS

DATA_FIELDS

RESOURCES

SERVICES

1

John Doe

12223334444

Any Text

FLAGGED

tYVEw2pi47EnkJfa5Uju=Mallory

ADcDQ0DUZ0QsBpnDDROH

RDFlVsC5vT7pp14VfQPY;bxj2PiYBjwvdnjcD87Gq

Once your CSV file has been successfully uploaded, the newly customers should show up on your Waitlist or Serving page (depending on the STATE that was set), and any customers added to the Waitlist that did not already exist in your customer database should show up on your Customers page.

Import to Bookings

This should be used when you would like to create new bookings for new or existing customers.

DATE

DURATION

NAME

EMAIL

PHONE

NOTES

STATE

TAGS

DATA_FIELDS

RESOURCES

SERVICES

2021-08-17T12:00

900

John Doe

12223334444

Any Text

BOOKED

FLAGGED

tYVEw2pi47EnkJfa5Uju=Mallory

ADcDQ0DUZ0QsBpnDDROH

RDFlVsC5vT7pp14VfQPY;bxj2PiYBjwvdnjcD87Gq

This method creates a new booking for a specific DATE (set in yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm format, ie. 2021-08-17T12:00) in which you can set the booking DURATION (in seconds), the current booking STATE (ie. BOOKED, CANCELLED, REMOVED, etc), and also include additional visit information such DATA_FIELDS, RESOURCES, or SERVICES.

Once your CSV file has been successfully uploaded, the newly imported bookings should show up in your Bookings calendar, and any bookings associated with new customers (not already in your Customer Database) should show up on your Customers page.

Importing Customer Info Data Fields, Resources and Services

DATA_FIELDS can be set in semi-colon separated pairs that include the data-field ID and it's value for that specific customer visit (the data field ID can be found in the bottom left corner of the edit module for each data field from your Customer Info page).

Here's an example:

There is a Customer information data field for "Sales Rep" which has an ID of tYVEw2pi47EnkJfa5Uju, and for the customer we are importing, the Sales Rep is Mallory. To make sure this information gets included for the visit once imported to the Waitlist, this should be listed in the DATA_FIELDS column as:

tYVEw2pi47EnkJfa5Uju=Mallory

If you have multiple data fields of customer information to include, we would put them within the same column, but separate each set of data field information with a semi-colon. For example, if we have a second data field for "Is this a new customer?" with an ID of RFZLajUkTb7TuYJlwmUn and the value is YES, we would add it on like this:

tYVEw2pi47EnkJfa5Uju=Mallory;RFZLajUkTb7TuYJlwmUn=YES

SERVICES and RESOURCES can be added similarly to DATA_FIELDS, but you only need to include the Service or Resource IDs (which can be found in the bottom left corner of the Service/Resource edit module from your Services and Resources settings pages). If there are multiple Services or Resources for that visit, they can be added as a semi-colon separated list, ie:

RDFlVsC5vT7pp14VfQPY;bxj2PiYBjwvdnjcD87Gq

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