In nShift On-premises you can import contact lists from Excel sheets. This is useful if you have a customer list in another system that you would like to copy to On-premises. 

Important note: Importing a contact list only works with Excel sheets saved in .xls or .xlsx format and you must have Excel installed on the machine. Other formats like .csv are not supported.

Topics in this article:

• Importing a contact list
• Using fields formatting
• Using the contact list

Importing a contact list

Follow these steps to import a contact list:

1. Go to Contact List. Right-click in the Contact List pane and choose Import Contact List. You can either import the contacts into the default contact list or create a new contact list first. The Excel list will be imported into the contact list that is highlighted when you choose Import Contact List.  
   
   
   
   
2. Click Select File to browse and choose a file. Specify which sheet to use in the file if it has multiple sheets. 
   
   
   
   
3. Go to the Fields Mapping tab. Map each field in the Excel file to a field in On-premises by clicking in the column ConsignorField and selecting a field from the drop-down list or typing a value. All fields must be mapped so On-premises knows what values are in each column.
   
   
   
   
4. If your master data contains full country names, you need to map these to Country ISO Codes. Click Country Mapping, fill in the correct Country ISO Code, and click OK. If all your contacts are in the same country, you can use the Set all address to feature and specify a country instead.
   
   
   
   
5. Click Start Import.
   
   
6. Your new contacts are imported when the progress bar is complete. Refresh the list by pressing the F5 key if your contacts are not visible.

Using Fields Formatting

Sometimes data must be formatted before it can be used in nShift On-premises. This is necessary if your master data does not match the required format in On-premises. Using the formatting tools, you can trim characters, add, or remove characters, change upper and lower case, add check digits, and much more. 

In the following example, the postcode (zip code) in the original data includes the country code and looks like this: SE-64551, FR-72160, etc. nShift On-premises needs the postcode without the country code, so we will use the formatting tools to remove this.

1. Select a file in the Source tab and map the fields as described in steps 2-4 above. You must map the Custno field to use the field formatting tools. 
   
   
2. Go to the Fields Formatting tab.
   
   
3. Click on the field you want to format and click the Tools button.
   
   
   
   
4. A new window opens. Click Add and select a tool from the drop-down menu. In this example, we want to remove the country code and the hyphen from the PostNo field, so we select the tool Remove all %s characters from beginning. The "%" is a parameter and we will set it to 3 in the box below to remove 3 characters. Click OK.
   
   
   
   
5. You will now see the selected tool has been added to the list. It is possible to add multiple tools if needed. Use the Sample text field to test if the tool works as intended. Enter an example and click Test Tools. In our example, we can enter SE-64551 and verify that it is formatted to 64551.
   
   
   
   
6. Click OK to save your tools. You may repeat adding tools for more fields in your contact list if needed.
   
   
7. Check the box Apply tools when importing and click Apply Tools. You will now see a tools icon appear at the top of the column where tools have been applied, and the data have been updated.
   
   
   
   
8. Click Start Import.
   
   
9. Your new contacts are imported when the progress bar is complete. Refresh the list by pressing the F5 key if your contacts are not visible.
   
   

Using the contact list

You can now create shipments by adding contacts in the production view by clicking My contacts or the Browse button.

You can also activate the search field if you want to search by customer number or name. Right-click the arrow next to My contacts and select Search Properties. Check the boxes next to Contact number and Contact name. You may also expand your search by choosing Search for: Contact containing search key.