How do I use a Custom ID field to find and match profiles during the import process?
By default Vome matches imported rows to existing profiles on the email address. If your organization already has its own identifier for people, you can match on that instead.
This needs the Enterprise or Ultimate plan, because it depends on creating your own field in the database.
One feature, two names. The field type is called Unique ID in the database, and the importer refers to it as a Custom ID. They are the same thing.
1. How matching works by default
Email is the primary field on Vome. If a profile in your database is jon.doe@email.com and your spreadsheet has a row for jon.doe@email.com, Vome recognises them as the same person and updates that profile rather than creating a second one.
That works well until the email is the unreliable part, which is common when you are exporting from another system, or when the same person has reached you under a personal and a work address.
2. Create the Unique ID field
Do this once, before the import that needs it.
- In the Database, open Manage fields, then New field.
- Choose the Unique ID field type. That is what tells Vome the value identifies the person, rather than being ordinary text.
The value has to be unique across every profile. If an ID is already on someone else, Vome refuses it and tells you so. Check your source data for repeats before you import, because a duplicate stops that row rather than guessing.
3. Fill it in through an import
Add a column of identifiers to your spreadsheet and, on the Map fields step, point it at your new Unique ID field. Run the import as usual.
Every profile in that file now carries its identifier.
4. Match on it in future imports
Once the IDs are in place, later imports can match on them instead of email. On the Customize & Assign step, change Match existing profiles based on from Email to your Unique ID field.
From then on, updating people in bulk no longer depends on their email address being right, or unchanged.
5. Getting the IDs back out
The Unique ID comes out in a database export alongside everything else, so the identifier stays usable in whatever system you keep on the other side.
Summary
- Vome matches on email unless you tell it otherwise.
- Create a field of type Unique ID under Database, Manage fields. Enterprise or Ultimate.
- Populate it with one import, then match on it in every import after that.
- Values must be unique across all profiles, and they come out in an export.
Email us if you would like a hand setting this up.