Importing Custom Entities

Overview

When importing Custom List Entities, you are presented with two options:     

• Create Custom Entities 
• Update Custom Entities

It is important to note that the import custom entities job only applies to list entities. Section entities imports happen as a part of the parent entity that they are attached to. For more information on section entities, please refer to the data import guides of Companies, Contacts, and Opportunities.

CREATE CUSTOM ENTITIES

When creating custom list entities, users first must select which of the custom entities they are importing. The first screen after selecting the custom entity import is selecting the Entity that is being imported. After selecting the entity, the user can choose any CSV file from their file system and upload it as a base for the import. After uploading the file, the next screen shows Spiro columns and CSV columns and provides an already familiar way to map the column names. 

The important difference here is that the Spiro columns are always going to be different, depending on the entity being imported. However, there are always 2 columns that must be filled and they are: 

• Owner (User ID) - The reference to the user. 
• Opportunity ID or Contact ID or Company ID - The reference to the parent entity of this custom list entity. 

These fields will be marked with a red asterisk symbol (*)

After doing the mapping, the user is met with an already familiar process of confirming the import and waiting for it to finish.

UPDATE CUSTOM ENTITIES

When updating Custom Entities, the process is exactly the same as for updating regular Spiro Entities, with the exception that the user must first select which entity they are updating. 

When updating custom entities, users cannot use any CSV they want, they must use CSV provided by Spiro. By provided by Spiro, this means that users can only use files that they got using the export feature.

The recommended way to achieve this is to query out the custom entities the user is planning to update and export them on the second screen after selecting the entity that is being updated. This will give the user a correct file that can be modified, and added back to the update. 

During the update, it is not possible to change the owner of the custom entity or transfer it to someone else. changing the Contact ID, Company ID or Opportunity ID will not have any effect on the import. It is only possible to change custom fields inside the entity that were added by the organization admin.

SOME ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

• If users don't want to use or don’t have their CSV documents for creating new records, they can always choose to download a template from the Upload section of the import. If they use the template and not change any fields, Spiro will automatically do the mapping for them so they do not have to do it manually.

• When importing any type of resource, all custom Lookup fields must be added as IDs.