This article is part of the Insightly Importing Guide
As you prepare a file for import, you may find that you have special information that isn't covered by the standard fields in Insightly. For these, you'll need to create a custom field in Insightly before importing.
Here are a few helpful notes about importing custom fields:
Selecting the right type of field
The type of information you're importing will help you decide what kind of field to set up.
In this example, our file includes a billing ID from our accounting system and a preferred nickname for our contacts. We can create numeric and text fields in Insightly to hold this information.
| Type of information you're importing | Recommended custom field type |
|---|---|
| A short string of text | Text Field |
| Dates | Date Field |
| A binary choice: Yes/No, Off/On, True/False | Checkbox |
| Only numbers | Numeric |
| Web addresses | URL |
| A longer string of text | Multi-line Text Field |
| A limited list of values | Dropdown Field |
| Email addresses | Email Address Field |
| Phone numbers | Phone Number Field |
Dropdown field values
A dropdown field in Insightly limits the selection to a list of specific values. When you import to a dropdown list field, the value you import will have to match an item in the list exactly. If it's "Nice" in the dropdown list, it should be "Nice" in your file -- a lowercase "nice" will not work properly.
When you set up a dropdown field, you'll need to make sure your list in Insightly covers all the values you might import.
Checkbox field values
Checkbox custom fields display as either checked or unchecked in Insightly. In computer-speak, this is a True or False value. To import checkboxes, checked = True and unchecked = False (or a blank value in your file).
If your previous system used different values, like Yes and No or On and Off, do a search and replace in that column of your file and change the "checked" value with True.
