Use the Import Assistant

How the import assistant turns any spreadsheet into clean customers and policies, and what you can ask it to do.

The import assistant is how you get data into careCycle. You hand it a file in whatever shape it's in, and it works through it with you in a chat: it figures out what's in the file, maps it to careCycle, cleans it up, and shows you exactly what will happen before anything is imported.

Find it at Settings > CRM Settings > Import Contacts, then pick Let the assistant do it.

Nothing imports until you say so

The assistant can read your file, look at your existing careCycle data, and prepare a clean version, but it can't import anything on its own. Every import waits for you to review it and press Hold to run import.

What you can give it

CSV, TSV, TXT, or Excel (.xlsx, .xls) files, up to 100MB each.
Several files at once, like a customer export and a separate policy export. Tell it how they relate if it isn't obvious.
Messy files are fine. Exports straight from a CRM, a carrier portal, or HealthSherpa, with odd column names, combined name fields, mixed date formats, or Excel leftovers like lost leading zeros. Cleaning that up is its job.

Every row needs a phone number. That's how careCycle tells customers apart.

How a conversation goes

Upload and assess

Drop your file in. The message box fills in "Take a look at this file and tell me what you find." Click Assess for import.

The assistant profiles every column: how full it is, what the values look like, which date format it uses, and what each row represents (one row per customer, or one per policy). It tells you what it found, including problems like rows missing a phone number.

Answer a few questions

Anything it can't work out on its own shows up as a Quick questions card. Click an answer or type your own. Questions it can skip have a Skip button.

Approve the mapping

It proposes how each column maps to a careCycle field, and how values translate (for example, your "Termed" status becoming Cancelled). Push back on anything that looks wrong. It won't transform the data until you agree.

Let it clean the data

It standardizes dates, phone numbers, ZIP codes, and money amounts, splits names, matches carrier names to careCycle's list, and drops columns with nothing useful in them. The cleaned file shows up under Outputs in the Files panel, where you can preview or download it.

Review the import

Before it runs, you get a Run this import? card. It does a practice run of the real import and shows you:

customers and policies that will be new or updated,
anything that will be skipped,
the status everyone imports as, and any campaign or tags.

If it looks right, press and hold Hold to run import. If not, Cancel and tell the assistant what to change.

Watch it run

A progress tracker walks through fetching the file, checking the rows, importing contacts, and wrapping up, with a time estimate. You can leave the page. Results come back to the same conversation, and you get an email when it's done.

What you can ask it to do

You talk to it like a person. Some things it's good at:

Set the customer status. "Import everyone as Active." The options are Lead, Active, and Inactive.
Tag people. "Tag everyone in this file 2027 ACA Renewal." It reuses tags you already have and creates new ones as needed. See Customer Tags.
Add people to a campaign. "Put these members in Welcome Calls." It shows you a campaign picker to confirm.
Split a file into groups. "Members whose plan is ending go to Win-Backs, everyone else gets the AEP campaign." Each group gets its own review card.
Keep extra data. If your file has something careCycle doesn't have a field for, it can propose a custom field. You approve each one with Create field or Skip.
Check against what's already in careCycle. "How many of these are already customers?" It can look up your existing customers, policies, campaigns, and fields (it only reads them).
Check Medicare plans. It can look up Medicare Advantage plan codes and names to make sure they're right. ACA plans can't be checked this way.
Import customers only. "Skip the policies, just bring in the people."

Adding people to a Draft campaign

If you add people to a campaign that's still a Draft, their first call or text is skipped when it comes due, and turning the campaign on later doesn't bring them back. Turn the campaign on first, or import without a campaign and add people afterward. See Add Customers to a Campaign.

Updating people who are already in careCycle

You can safely re-run imports. Customers are matched on phone number:

Values in your file replace what's stored.
Empty cells never erase anything. A blank email in your file leaves the existing email alone.
Policies are matched by enrollment or policy IDs first, then by policy type plus plan code and effective date, so they update instead of duplicating.

The full matching rules are in the Book of Business Field Reference.

Things to know

Shared phone numbers become one customer. If two rows share a phone number (spouses on a home line, for example), they're combined into one customer, and the last row's details win. The results call these out as "combined (shared phone)" so you can follow up.
Every customer needs a location to be called. A ZIP code, state, or time zone tells careCycle what time it is for the member. Rows without one still import, but campaigns skip them.
Failed rows come with a report. If some rows don't make it in, the assistant attaches a file with each row and the reason. Ask it to fix what it can and retry just those rows.
Your conversations stick around. Past imports are listed under Recent imports, so you can pick one back up or check what was done.