Creating a New Import from Excel

A new import from Excel is an import that has not previously been exported to Excel from Campaign Manager

The spreadsheet must contain header rows corresponding to the column name in the grid. The "reserved" columns, appearing on the grid by default must be in Upper Case as listed below.

Columns that relate to variables being manually added to the grid are case sensitive and must match the variable name exactly, to be imported. Columns in the excel spreadsheet can be created in any order as it matches on name not ordinal position. It is not necessary to add all columns to the spreadsheet if they are not required to be pre-populated from excel values;

It is important to note that all Excel cells must be configured as TEXT to ensure Excel formatting does not carry out any automatic transformation of the cell data on import.

The following column headers can be used. These are available headers, it is not compulsory to use all the headers to import information into the Grid Segmentation rows. Note that the # column on the grid is a row number, and therefore does not need to be imported.

PARENT_ID: Generally the PARENT_ID value should be left blank as they will be the highest level, unless Filters are nested in Filters in which case the hierarchy rules apply. For example in the screen shot, the Cell row on excel row 6 has a parent of the Filter row on excel row 4:

Parent rows must be Filter rows otherwise an error will be generated when the Spreadsheet is imported. Note that child rows can either be Cell or Filter.

• CODE: Allows the cell code to be populated. These codes must be unique, if not, the campaign will fail at validation time, not when the spreadsheet is imported. Cell codes are not valid for filter rows, and if present will cause an error when importing the Spreadsheet.
• TYPE: The type of row to create, Cell or Filter. If no value is specified, or the column isn't present, the default value will be Cell.
• SELECTION: Imports the name of the segment for a row. There is no option to define a segment rule, however specifying the name is helpful when manually configuring these rules.
• Allows the NperX setting to be turned off, passed on or excluded. Values that can be used are:
  • OFF: No N per X processing procedures occur.
  • PASSNEXT: If N per X is set at Filter level the N per X excluded records will pass to the next Filter row. If no filter rows exist the balance is excluded. If N per X is set at Cell level the N per X excluded records are passed to the next row, regardless of the row type. If the cell is the last row in the grid, then the balance is excluded.
  • EXCLUDE: Any records excluded will immediately be removed from the entire campaign and further Filters or cells will not select those recipients.

  The default value is OFF if the value is not specified.

• SAMPLE: Populates the sample column in the grid, for Filter and Cell rows. Note only numbers and numbers with % signs with a maximum of two decimal places are valid. Further validation is performed when the Campaign is validated.
• TACTIC: Allows the Tactic drop down to be populated in the grid. This is valid only for 'Cell' rows and must match the name of the tactic in the Campaign, or can be set to (Default) or (None).
• VARIABLES: Any other column headers will be considered as variables. The variable columns will only be processed if the current row is a Cell row. In order to be populated, the variables must be added to the grid using the Manage Variables button. Note that it is only useful to import text variables, as all other variable types will appear as the name of the database column, not the variable value. It is not required to have a column for all grid-variables. Those not specified will be given a default value. Any column headers that do not correspond to grid variables are ignored. The variables must match the name in the campaign system and are case sensitive. To set a variable to a default value use (Default). Any Date/Time values should be specified in the user's culture. Boolean values should be specified as True or False. If the variable is a picklist then the value should be present in the picklist.

The image below is an example Spreadsheet that can be imported into a Grid Campaign:

Once the Excel spreadsheet has been created, click the Import from Excel button. If any errors occur when importing the spreadsheet a warning message is displayed. Click on the triangle next to the campaign name at the top of the screen to see the reason why the import failed. For example, the tactic names used on the spreadsheet do not match the tactic names used in the campaign.

More detailed validation of the data within the grid is performed when validating the campaign as whole using the Validate button on the Campaign Overview screen. It is therefore advisable to regularly validate the campaign grid immediately after a successful import to ensure that all values imported are valid.

• Grid segmentation Campaigns - Import from Excel
  • Creating a New Import from Excel
  • Importing a Previously Exported Campaign