Importing Activities

Details on how to properly import activities

Updated over a week ago

Activities are used to keep track of your interaction history, and it is possible to import a spreadsheet file listing activities using Method's Import / Export tool. 

The process for importing can be found in the article:

However, preparing the spreadsheet import file will be the trickiest thing, for there are a lot of fields that are required.

In this article, we will show you how to prepare your spreadsheet so you can import it properly. 


Preparing the Import File

Before importing, it is important to understand which fields are needed and how to populate them. 

Below is a sample template to use for importing activities.  We provide one in Google Docs and another as an Excel .xls file.

We will go through each field detailing their purpose. 

  • ContactName: This is the name of the contact. It should exactly match the name in your Method account.

  • Contacts: This is the Record ID of contact whom you have the activity with. Please see the next section on how to use VLOOKUP to find the contact's Record ID.

  • Entity: A contact is associated with an entity: a customer, lead, vendor, or employee. This must be entered in exactly as their display name is found in QuickBooks. Unlike the contact, you do not use the Record ID. Please see the next section on how to use VLOOKUP to find this.

  • ActivityStatus: Out-of-the-box, the following activity statuses are:

    • Cancelled

    • Completed

    • Deferred

    • In Progress

    • Not Started

    • Waiting on someone else.

  • ActivityType: Out-of-the-box, the following activity types are:

    • Email Incoming

    • Email Outgoing

    • Email Incoming & Outgoing Email

    • Meeting

    • Phone Call Incoming

    • Phone Call Outgoing

    • Other

    • To-do

    • Web Comment

  • AssignedTo* (required): This is the Method user assigned to the activity and it's a required field. This field must contain the username as shown within the Preferences > Users list. In other words, do not use the Record ID. 

  • DueDateStart* (required): The date the activity started.

  • DueDateEnd: If the activity has a time duration, this is the date when it ends.

  • Taglist: Enter tags in for the activity here. The tags must exist within Method:CRM first and be separated by a comma. Spaces should be changed to underscores "_".

  • Comments: Any comments and notes you want to make about the activity itself.

Once properly filled in, you can use this template to import a number of activities for any number of contacts.


Getting the Contact's Record ID

One of the most difficult aspects about importing records into Method is including all the values that relate to other tables. 

For example, many tables rely on the Contact's Record ID, as well as the Customer associated to the Contact. 

Instead of searching for and manually inputting each Record ID manually, you can export your Contacts table and use the VLOOKUP function in your spreadsheet to automatically associate the Record ID and the customer to your contact.

Due to the complexity of this process, we have an article called How to use VLOOKUP in a Spreadsheet

The above import sample files include an example of using VLOOKUP with a sample contacts spreadsheet.

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