How To Import Prospects into Outreach via .CSV File

Purpose: 

The purpose of this article is to provide direction to Outreach users in importing Prospects via .csv file. 

Intended Audience: 

• All Outreach Users

Notes:

• Outreach does not support UTF-8 files and special characters. 
• Organizations operating multiple Plugins connected to a single instance (i.e. a Production instance and Sandbox CRM instance but the Sandbox is disconnected while Production is connected) will only be able to pull records from the first instance connected. For example, if you were testing the sync between Salesforce and Outreach with your Salesforce Sandbox (prior to connecting Production) and did not remove it, the sandbox will be the first instance. In this scenario, the CSV would try and sync and associate with the Sandbox rather than the Production Salesforce instance.
• If you're using Salesforce and adding multiple Leads, Contacts, or Accounts at once, Outreach recommends creating and importing a Salesforce report. For more information on creating a Salesforce report, refer to the Importing a Salesforce Report into Outreach article. 
• Outreach recommends relying on this import method if the Outreach Everywhere chrome extension is not installed. For more information on importing records from a CRM via the Outreach Everywhere, refer to the applicable Outreach Everywhere articles. 

How To Import Prospects via CSV 

1. Access the Outreach Platform. 
2. Click the Actions button and select Bulk Create from the dropdown menu.
   
3. Select Prospects comma-separated values file (.csv) from the Import Type dropdown menu. 
4. Click the Click to select a file button and navigate to the applicable file. 
   Note: Outreach will notify users if the file selected has errors that will prevent a successful import.
5. Click Next.
   
6.  On Step 2 of the import process, confirm the information and fields are correct. 
7. Click to enable the Assign Account option as applicable.
   
   Note: To associate Prospects to the correct account, the .csv file must contain a column with only values that are already in use by one or more Account object's 'Custom ID' field. Confirm the Account Custom ID field is included as a column in the .csv file. The Account Custom ID field will not appear unless the Assign Account option is selected and Prospects will not be assigned to an Account. 
8. Click Next. 
9. On Step 3 of the import process, input the applicable data in the remaining fields as described in the table below: 

   Field	Description
   Owner:	Assigns an owner to the Prospects.
   What to do with duplicates:	Directs the platform on how to treat duplicate entries: Skip - Does not update information on Prospects that already exists in Outreach.  Overwrite Existing Fields - Replaces existing information on the Prospect with information contained in the .csv.  Update Missing Fields - Updates fields on the Prospect that are not present.  Note: Outreach will automatically dedupe all prospects based on their email address. If email address is not included in the CSV file, Outreach can instead use either a Github or Twitter Username as a unique identifier. For more information on how Outreach manages duplicate entries, refer to the applicable article.
   Stage:	Adds the Prospects to a sequence stage.
   Time Zone:	Applies the applicable Time Zone to the Prospects.
   Source:	Applies a source to the list of Prospects. Example: "Webform"
   Additional Tags:	Adds tags to the Prospects.
   Load Addition Data From Salesforce:	Pulls data in from Salesforce.
10. Click Next. 
11. On Step 4 of the import process, click Start Import. 
    
    Outreach imports the Prospects into the platform as configured in the steps above.