When you upload a list of Contact email addresses (and other personal information), it's important that there are appropriate fields in your Higher Logic Thrive Marketing Professional (Thrive Marketing Professional) account in which to store that incoming data. This means that the data in your upload file have to be "mapped" to an associated field in Thrive Marketing Professional; a field that is designed to store that type of data (e.g., text, date).

In order to ensure this mapping, you must create Data Formats in Thrive Marketing Professional.

The data-format Default option

The Data Format piece of the file-upload process in Thrive Marketing Professional has a Default option that is recommended if you are uploading just a list of email addresses. This option assumes two things about the upload file:

the first column is populated with email addresses only and
it contains no other data.

Plan your Data Formats

You can create Data Formats:

during the file-upload process (as described in Upload Contacts) and
on the Data Formats page in Admin (Contacts > Uploads > Data Formats)

This article focuses on the Data Formats page option.

Upload the data you'll need

Before you create a Data Format, take a moment to understand the data that you're uploading to Thrive Marketing Professional — and to make sure you're including all the data that you'll need.

For example, if you're preparing a mailing and intend to have minimal personalization (such as only including the first name in the greeting), you might need to include only your contacts' email addresses and first names in your upload file.

Apart from this, is there other contact information that you're overlooking which might be worth including in this mailing or for future use?

Would information, such as your contacts' last names, allow for better customization of your message text or subject line?
Would knowing the number of years that they've been with your organization be a factor in how you write a story about the same topic?

TIP: Any data that you upload can be used for personalization.

Data format names

TIP: You should review this information before creating a Data Format.

When you name your Data Format, be sure that the name clearly indicates its purpose. This is especially important:

because Data Formats do not have "description" fields
if you have multiple, similar Data Formats and multiple team members are using them.

NOTE: If the wrong Data Format is chosen as the source (Step 2 of the upload process), the data could be mapped to the wrong field...or not at all!

Manage your Data Formats

You can manage (create, edit, delete) all of your Data Formats on a single page in the Admin interface.

Navigate to Contacts > Upload > Data Formats.

Your Data Formats display in the list.

Note that:

All of the fields (General, Personal Info, and Demographics) that are added to Columns in Data Format for the Data Format display in the Fields column. This is described in Create a Data Format, below.
Data Format names can contain letters, numerals, and/or special characters.
The default display order is: Data Format names that start with a special character are listed first, followed by those names that start with a numeral, and then an alphabetized list.
You can click the Format Name column header to change the sort order of the list; the up/down arrow indicates current sort order.

On this page you can:

Option	Description
Create	Click the ADD DATA FORMAT button next to the page title to open the "add" dialog to create a Data Format as described in Create a Data Format, below.
Search	Use the popup to find Data Formats by name or fields. You can set other criteria (contains, begins with, ends with) for a more focused search:
Reset	Click to remove any search criteria and reset the list to the default display order (described above).
Export	Click to download a spreadsheet file (.xls) of the current list of Data Formats. - The download respects any list sorting that is applied. - The file name is InformzReport_ followed by a random string of numbers. - If you save the file, consider replacing the number string with the date. - If Show Deleted is checked, the file will include your deleted Data Formats.
Show Deleted	Click to display your deleted Data Formats. These display in red text and in their correct display position (described above).
Delete	This works only when one or more Data Formats are selected. Check the box in the left column, then click Delete, and click Ok at the confirmation prompt.

Hover menu options

There is a hover-menu for each Data Format to the left of the Format Name column.

Use this menu to:

Edit a Data Format. You can change the: Format Name, Column Delimiter, and/or column selections.
- Editing is the same as "creating" but with the exception that Columns in Data Format is probably already populated.
Delete a Data Format.
- Unlike the Delete option above the list, this does not require the checkbox to be checked.
Undelete a deleted Data Format.
- This displays only for deleted Data Formats, which display only when Show Deleted is checked.

Left-column checkbox & multi-select

The left column of the list has checkboxes that you can use to delete one or several of your Data Formats.

To select multiple, non-consecutive Data Formats:

Select a Data Format.
Press and hold the Ctrl (Windows) or command (Mac) key.
Select each of the additional Data Formats that you want to delete.

To select multiple, consecutive Data Formats:

Select a Data Format.
Press and hold the Shift key (Windows and Mac).
Select the last Data Format in the consecutive run that you want to delete.

TIP: You can combine these methods to select/deselect groups of and individual Data Formats.

Create a Data Format

On the Data Formats page, click Add Data Format to open the Add Data Format dialog.
Specify a name (required).
Accept the default, Tab, as the Column Delimiter or click the dropdown to select Pipe ( | ), Tilde ( ~ ), or Comma ( , ). NOTE: Tab is recommended.
Refer to Add, reposition, and remove fields, below, for instructions on how to manage fields for a Data Format.

Add, reposition, and remove fields

It's easy to add (and remove) fields for a Data Format on the Add Data Format dialog, and your field selections can be changed (edit the Data Format) in the future if necessary.

Add only the fields (from under Available Columns) that correspond to the columns in your upload file.
- NOTE: Adding disassociated fields could result in the incoming data being incorrectly mapped or not mapped.
The top-to-bottom order (of the Columns in Data Format fields) must match the left-to-right order of the columns in your upload file in order for the incoming data to be correctly mapped in Thrive Marketing Professional.
The Email field under Columns in Data Format is preset by default and is required; it cannot be removed. This is why it's important that email addresses be the first (i.e., left-most) value of the upload file.

To add fields:

Click a field under Available Columns to add it to Columns in Data Format.

The fields display in the order in which they're added.

Personal Info and Demographics fields have the type in parentheses; General fields do not.

Reposition a field

You can reposition the fields under Columns in Data Format. This is useful if you realize that the top-to-bottom order of the fields does not match the left-to-right order of the columns in your upload file.

In the following image, we've repositioned the First Name (Pers) field.

To reposition a field:

Click and hold the green handle.
Drag the field up or down to the correct position.
Drop (release the mouse button) the field in that position.

Remove a field

You can remove fields from Columns in Data Format. This is useful if you've inadvertently added the wrong field (e.g., you've added Status instead of State).

To remove a field:

Click the field that you want to remove.

The field is removed and automatically returned to its original list and position under Available Columns.

Save and verify

After adding and ordering the fields for the Data Format:

Click Save.
Review the list; the new Data Format displays with yellow highlight.
Verify the fields in the Fields column.

To learn how to upload a list of contacts into Thrive Marketing Professional, see Upload Contacts.
To learn how to upload lists of contacts who are Opt-outs, Unsubscribes, or Resubscribes, see Upload Contacts - Opt-Outs, Unsubscribes, and Resubscribes.

Data Formats for Uploading Contacts