Contact bulk import

Import many contacts at once from a spreadsheet. A short assistant walks you through four steps: pick a file, line up your columns, choose a few options, and watch the import run.

Where to find it

Contacts list → Bulk Import button

Who can use it

Team members who can create contacts

Direct URL

https://app.nextal.com/contacts/bulk-import

Bulk import is the fastest way to bring a list of contacts into Nextal — for example, an HR contact list you exported from another tool, or a fresh list from a client. You open the assistant, drop in a spreadsheet, tell Nextal which column means what, and the assistant creates the contacts one by one.

Screenshot pendingThe Bulk Contact Import assistant showing four steps across the top: Upload, Map columns, Configure, Import. The first step is open with a file drop zone in the middle.

The Bulk Import assistant. The four steps are always visible across the top so you know where you are.

At a glance — the four steps

Step

Name

What happens

Upload

Drop in a spreadsheet — CSV or Excel, up to 10 MB. Need a starting point? Download the template right from this step.

Map columns

Tell Nextal which column in your file matches which contact field. The assistant guesses for you on common names like “first name” or “email” — review and adjust.

Configure

Preview your data, choose whether to skip duplicates, optionally attach tags, and pick which clients these contacts should be linked to.

Import

Watch the progress bar. When it’s done, you’re sent to the contacts list with your new entries.

Opening the assistant

Go to your contacts list

Click Contacts in the main menu.
Click Bulk Import

You’ll find the button on the list toolbar. The assistant opens on its own page.

Step 1 — Upload your spreadsheet

Screenshot pendingThe upload step with a drop zone in the middle, a short list of file requirements above it, and a "Download template" link below.

Drop your file in the middle, or click to browse. The template link sits below the drop zone.

What file types work:

CSV (.csv) — the simplest option, opens in any spreadsheet app
Excel (.xlsx or .xls)

Size limit: 10 MB. If your file is bigger, you’ll see “File is too large. Maximum size is 10MB.” Try splitting it into two imports.

Wrong file type: if you drop in a PDF or image by mistake, you’ll see “Invalid file type. Please upload CSV or Excel files only.”

Need a template? Click the Download template link near the drop zone. You’ll get a CSV with the right column headers — fill it in with your data, save, and drop it back into the assistant.

Step 2 — Tell Nextal what your columns mean

Screenshot pendingThe column mapping step with one row per spreadsheet column. Each row has the spreadsheet header on the left, a dropdown of contact fields in the middle, and a sample value on the right.

One row per column in your spreadsheet. Pick the matching contact field from the dropdown. Required fields are highlighted in red until mapped.

You’ll see one row per column in your file. For each one, pick which contact field it should fill. The assistant tries to guess for you — if your column is called “First Name” or “Email”, it’ll be pre-selected. Review each row and adjust if needed.

The three required fields

You can’t move on until these are mapped:

First Name
Last Name
Email — must look like an email address (something@somewhere.com)

Until all three are mapped, the Next button stays disabled.

What else you can import

You can map any of these 44 fields, organised by category:

Small clean-ups Nextal does for you

Before each contact is created, the assistant gently tidies the data:

Emails are converted to lowercase and trimmed — so “Mary.Smith@Acme.COM ” becomes “mary.smith@acme.com”.
Phone numbers keep only digits, plus signs, dashes, parentheses and spaces — random characters from formatting are stripped out.
Years of experience and Rating are turned into numbers — text like “five years” won’t import correctly; use a numeric value.
Client IDs from your spreadsheet are merged with whatever clients you pick in the next step (no duplicates).

Step 3 — Configure your import

Screenshot pendingThe configure step with a data preview at the top showing the first 10 rows, and a configuration card below with a skip-duplicates checkbox, a tags multi-select, and a Client Assignment picker.

Preview at the top, options below. Skip duplicates is on by default. The Client Assignment picker is unique to contacts.

Preview your data

The first ten rows of your file are shown with all your mapping rules applied. This is the last chance to catch a wrong mapping before you commit. If a column looks off, click Back and adjust step 2.

Skip duplicates checkbox

Two contacts in Nextal can’t share the same email address. The checkbox tells the assistant what to do when it finds a contact whose email already exists:

On (default) — duplicates are silently skipped and counted as success. This is what you want when re-running an import after a failure: the contacts already created are simply ignored.
Off — duplicates are reported as errors. Use this when you want a clean reconciliation report of exactly which contacts in your file were already in Nextal.

Add tags to every imported contact

Pick or type tags in the multi-select. Every contact in this import will get those tags, in addition to anything from your spreadsheet’s Tags column. Handy for tagging a whole batch with something like “imported-2026-02” so you can find them later.

Attach the batch to one or more clients

Pick the clients these contacts work for. Every contact in this import will be linked to those clients, on top of any client IDs from your spreadsheet. Perfect when you’re importing 200 HR contacts from a single agency client export — set the client once here instead of repeating its ID in 200 rows.

Step 4 — Run the import

Screenshot pendingThe import step with a horizontal progress bar, three counters (Processed, Successful, Failed), and a list of error messages below as they appear.

The progress bar fills as each contact is created. Errors appear in a list below the counters.

Click Start Import and watch the progress bar. For each row in your file:

Nextal applies the column mapping
Runs the small clean-ups above
Validates the email and required fields
Creates the contact
Adds your tags and client links
Pauses briefly, then moves to the next row

You’ll see three counters update in real time: Processed, Successful, Failed. Errors are listed below the bar with the row number and a short explanation (typically a missing required field or a bad email format).

When the import finishes successfully

You’ll get a notification at the top right (“Successfully imported N contacts”), and after a couple of seconds you’re sent back to the contacts list — your new entries are right there waiting.

If every row failed

No notification, no redirect. You stay on the import step with the error list visible. Read the errors, fix your file, then start over from step 1.

How this compares to the candidate import

If you’ve used the bulk import for candidates before, here’s what’s the same and what’s different:

Aspect

Candidate import

Contact import

Paths

Two: spreadsheet or a folder of CVs

One: spreadsheet only

Fields you can import

Required fields

First name, last name, email

Same

Duplicate check

By email