Update Contact records via Import tool using only ContactID

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I am attempting to update records for Contact entity, trying to avoid duplicate entries. I am able to do this on an Account entity by pasting AccountID in the Name field. However, not able to do this on the contact entity. Any help on this would be appreciated!

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Adrian Begovich 1,027 Moderator on at

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Hi ksk06,

This article will teach you how to avoid duplicate data during data import using the Data Import Wizard and Duplicate Detection Rules.

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Hi Adrian -

Thanks for the quick response. My question really is how to update existing Contacts using the ContactID field. I have all the ID's because I needed to perform a query in SQL using multiple joins to get specific data and now I need to update those existing records. I am aware of the duplicate detection rules and I am looking for a cleaner way of updating this information. The Account entity works just fine when I use the AccountID in the name field but the Contact is giving us trouble. Do you have any other suggestions by chance?

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Adrian Begovich 1,027 Moderator on at

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Hi ksk06,

If you are able to find the contact records in Advanced Find then you can update them with a console application or workflows. Another option is to use the contactID field as an upsert key in SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) to update the existing contact records.

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Sreevalli 3,256 on at

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Hi,

Export contacts from advance find after adding all the fields which you want to import. That should have 3 hidden fields and one of them must be ContactId. So you prepare your data in the same file and import it back. Hence it will update all the data based on contactid

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Hi Sreevalli -

I can not export via Advance Find because my query is looking at multiple entities so I had to pull the information in SQL. I find that when i use a Contact template to import i get an error when i copy/paste the ContactIDs in the hidden column (A). Any thoughts on that?

Error Message: "The source data is not in the required format" This references the source as the contact ID.

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Thanks. I can do not want to execute the changes in SQL directly because of procedures we have in place.

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Sreevalli 3,256 on at

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Hi,

You have use template itself otherwise contact I’d you cannot use through excel imports. Anyways you found SPs inplace, hope that serves your purpose

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