The Standard Constituent Import Process
During an import, the Luminate system determines whether it should create a new contact record in the Constituent360 database, update an existing record, or ignore the information by looking for a unique value in the upload file.
In the upload file:
- If the system finds CONS_ID values, it attempts to match each CONS_ID in the upload file to an existing Luminate contact record. If it finds a matching CONS_ID in:
A contact record and that record is in the Active status, the system will update the existing contact record with the information from the upload file.
A contact record and that record is in the Removed status, the system will reject the information and place a message in the errors.csv file: "This record only matched records in Luminate Online that had been removed. Record rejected."
If no match is found, the upload record is placed in the errors file.
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If the upload file does not have a CONS_ID, it next attempts to find MEMBER_ID values listed in the upload file.
- If the system finds MEMBER_ID values (but no CONS_ID values), it attempts to match each MEMBER_ID in the upload file to one in an existing Luminate contact record. If it finds a matching MEMBER_ID in:
Only one contact record and that record has an Active status, it updates the existing contact record with the information from the upload file.
Only one contact record and that record has a Removed status, it rejects the information and places an error in the errors.csv file: "This record only matched records in Luminate Online that had been removed. Record rejected."
Multiple contact records, it rejects the record and places a message in the errors.csv file that the MEMBER_ID matched more than one record in Luminate.
No records, it attempts to find an existing record with a blank MEMBER_ID and a matching PRIMARY_EMAIL. If it finds such a record, it will update it with information from the upload file. (If the record it finds has a status of Removed, it will not update the record; rather, it will place an entry in the errors.csv file.)
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If the system finds no matches on MEMBER_ID or PRIMARY_EMAIL, the system adds the record from the upload file.
- If the system finds PRIMARY_EMAIL addresses (but no CONS_IDs or MEMBER_IDs), it attempts to match each PRIMARY_EMAIL address in the upload file to one in an existing contact record. If it finds a matching PRIMARY_EMAIL address in:
Only one contact record and that record has an Active status, it updates the existing contact record with the information from the upload file.
Only one contact record and that record has a Removed status, it rejects the information and places a message in the errors.csv file: "This record only matched records in Luminate Online that had been removed. Record rejected."
Multiple contact records, it updates the record that was created first.
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If the system cannot find a PRIMARY_EMAIL in an uploaded record, but finds other information (such as a FIRST_NAME or LAST_NAME), the system creates a new contact record, uploads information from the CSV file, and assigns a unique numeric ID to the new constituent.
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The system rejects records it does not recognize. If the upload file contains an invalid header record (that is, one of the field headers is not valid or typed incorrectly), the system does not continue the operation and displays an error message on the Constituent Data Upload Import/Export interface page to identify the problem. If the upload file contains other errors, the upload operation may run successfully but an error.csv file is generated containing errors.