Navigation: contacts > upload contacts.
TalkBox’s upload feature allows you to upload and update contacts in your account by uploading a spreadsheet of contact information. In cases where an upload has displayed an error or only a partial amount of contacts in the spreadsheet have been successfully uploaded, you can refer to the common causes of errors below, to help you troubleshoot.
The file is incorrectly formatted
It is important that any files uploaded to TalkBox include only the information desired to be added to TalkBox; with minimal formatting and no special characters. See the DOs and DON’Ts when it comes to formatting an upload file, below:
| Do | Don’t |
| ✔️ Include a header row | ✖️ ️ Include special characters (such as / ; ! , $) |
| ✔️ Use one sheet only | ✖️ ️ Include gaps between rows or columns |
| ✔️ Save your file in .CSV file format | ✖️ ️ Include hyperlinks |
| ✔️ Remove any unnecessary or blank columns or rows | ✖️ Include heavy formatting (e.g. coloured text) |
| ✖️ Include line breaks in cells |
TIP: A quick way to find and replace symbols is to use the ‘Find and replace’ function in your spreadsheet program, to locate problem characters and either replace or delete.
The file has too many contact rows
TalkBox has a maximum upload limit of 10,000 contact rows. If an upload file exceeds this limit, the upload will error and none of the contact rows will be uploaded or updated.
TIP: In cases where you would like to upload a file with 10,000 or more contact rows, you can split one large file into multiple smaller files under 10,000 in order to perform separate uploads.
The file contains rows with incorrectly formatted emails or mobile numbers
TalkBox accepts email addresses and mobile numbers in a standard format. Email addresses and mobile numbers need to be formatted correctly, in order to be uploaded to TalkBox. See below for an example of correctly and incorrectly formatted contact details.
✔️Correctly formatted email examples: XXXX@gmail.com / XXXX@hotmail.com
✔️Correctly formatted mobile examples: 04XXXXXXXX / 614XXXXXXXX
✖️ Incorrectly formatted email examples: XXXX@gmail.c / XXXX@hotmail.com
✖️ Incorrectly formatted mobile examples: +614XXXXXXXX / 04-XX-XXX-XXX
TIP: You can download problem rows when your upload has completed, this will generate a spreadsheet that includes error messages next to each row that was unable to be uploaded.
The file contains rows without either an email address or mobile number
Contacts can only be added to TalkBox if they have either a correctly formatted email address or mobile number. If the upload file contains contact rows without either an email address or mobile, they will be unable to be added to TalkBox.
The file contains rows with duplicate contacts
TalkBox refers to email addresses & mobile numbers as unique identifiers. Therefore, an email address and mobile number can only exist in one TalkBox contact profile. If the upload file includes duplicate email address or mobiles, the upload will process the first row in the file to TalkBox, and display the remaining duplicates as error rows.
TIP: In your spreadsheet program, you can remove duplicate rows by navigating to the data tab in your spreadsheet and selecting “Remove duplicates”.
The file contains rows with incorrectly formatted dates
TalkBox date fields accept a DD/MM/YYYY format, if an upload file includes a date format other than this, the date may be uploaded incorrectly or cause the contact row to error and not be uploaded at all. See below for an example of correctly and incorrectly formatted dates.
| Correct date format for TalkBox ️ | Incorrect date format for TalkBox: |
| ✔ 13/06/2019 | ✖ 13th of June 2019 |
| ✖ 06/13/2019 | |
| ✖ 13.06.2019 | |
| ✖ 13-June-19 |
Watch the next training video on ‘creating an email’ here.