Member Data Import Fields

Import member data from your legacy AMS into Novi.

Melisa Smith avatar
Written by Melisa Smith
Updated over a week ago

We will help guide you through the data import process. Please review the following guide on fields that can be imported from your legacy AMS into Novi. Each of the following bullet points corresponds to a column in the spreadsheet.

Please also read through our QuickBooks Online and Data Import documentation to review how this affects your data.

Note: Some fields are required, some are conditionally required, and some fields are optional and are marked as such below.


General Membership Information

Import ID

*Required. 50 character max. Must be unique across all companies and people. Each record will need one. This is solely used for import, it will NOT become Customer ID numbers within Novi. The system will assign those upon import. Unless your current system exports records with IDs attached, it's typically easiest to use the name of the record as the ID.

Parent Import ID

*Conditionally Required. 50 character max. Used to create relationships between familial relationships. For example, if someone works for a company, their Parent ID would be the company's Import ID.

Member Type

*Conditionally Required. 30 character max. Dues-paying members or prospects (i.e. non-members who may become members in the future) must have a member type. 

Don't worry about giving a member type to inheriting members, such as the individuals working for member companies. They will be given membership benefits based on their parent.

Is a Person

*Required. Add a "Yes" for any individual record (regardless of if the individual is a member his or herself OR inheriting membership benefits from a company). Leave blank for company records. 

Original Join Date

16 character max. This is an optional field for tracking when a member first joined. If there has been a lapse in membership, this date will be different from the Current Membership Since date. If no information, this will auto-fill with the Member Since date.

Member Since

*Conditionally Required. 16 character max. This is the date the current membership term began. Unless there was a lapse in membership, this should be the date the member joined your organization. See above if there was a lapse. Years should be formatted using four digits (i.e. 1999 or 2018). This is required if you want this customer to come in as a dues-paying member. If you don't know the value, use 1/1/2000 as a default. Prospects, non-members, and inheriting members should not have one.

Membership Expires

*Conditionally Required. 16 character max. Years should be formatted using four digits (i.e. 1999 or 2018). Required if you want this customer to come in as a dues-paying member. Records imported with expiration dates in the past will still import, but they will NOT have member benefits. Prospects, non-members, and inheriting members should not have one.

NOTE: You CAN also bring in non-members and prospective members. Prospect members should have a member type, but no member since or member expiration date. True non-members should have no member type, no member since, and no expiration date.


Basic Company Information

Company Name

*Required. 100 character max. Required only for a company record. Not needed on an individual's record. Most characters are allowed except for colons and emoji characters.

Company Alias

Typically used to keep track of companies doing business as another name. You can search for alias in the database, but it will not appear in the company display name or in a directory search.

Primary Contact ID

50 character max. ONLY applicable to company records. Import ID of the person that will be set as the Primary Contact on a company record. The primary contact can view company staff, transactions, and the company profile. 

NOTE: One person can be the primary contact of multiple related companies if necessary. If this is the case, they will see staff and company profile for only their direct parent who they are the primary contact of, but the transactions for any companies they are the primary of.

Primary Billing ID

50 character max. ONLY applicable to company records. Import ID of the person that will be set as the Billing Contact on a company record. This record will receive the emailed invoices and billing transactions. 

If there is no billing contact, transactions go to the company's main email. If that does not exist, transactions go to the primary contact. 

If your member utilizes a billing system where invoices need to go to a certain accounting email not necessarily tied to a person, you may consider creating a person record named "Billing Contact" or "Accounts Payable" with the correct email and set that record as the billing contact. 

NOTE: One person can be the billing contact of multiple related companies.


Basic Individual Information

Note: Individuals will be able to update this information from their Member Compass.

Title

16 character max. Mr., Mrs., Dr., etc.

First Name

*Required. 100 character max. Required for ALL individual records. Do not include first/middle/last names on company records.

Middle Name

100 character max. Do not include first/middle/last names on company records.

Last Name

*Required. 100 character max. Required for ALL individual records. Do not include first/middle/last names on company records.

Suffix

16 character max. Jr., Sr., etc.

Receive Benefits

A Yes or True value. To be used only for staff of company member types where there is a limited number of members who inherit membership benefits from a parent company.


Contact Information

Logged-in users will be able to update this information from their Member Compass. This applies to companies and individuals.

Email Address

100 character max. Main contact email for each record that can be synced to MailChimp or Constant Contact.  

Website

1000 character max. Needs to be a valid domain name (e.g."https://www.noviams.com" or "www.noviams.com")

Phone

25 character max. Preferred format: (123) 456-7890 ext 1234

Fax

25 character max. Preferred format: (123) 456-7890 ext 1234

Billing1

255 character max. Billing address will show on invoices. See important differences between billing and shipping addresses in Billing vs Shipping Address Convention.

Billing2

255 character max. 

Billing City

255 character max.

Billing State

50 character max.

Billing Zip

10 character max.

Billing Country

50 character max.

Shipping1

255 character max. Shipping address will appear in the member directory profiles for companies.

Shipping2

255 character max.

Shipping City

255 character max.

Shipping State

50 character max.

Shipping Zip

10 character max.

Shipping County

Shipping Country

50 character max.

Use Parent Billing

Value should be Yes or True on a child record that should take on its parent's billing address. Can apply to sub-companies or individuals.

Use Parent Shipping

Value should be Yes or True on a child record that should take on its parent's shipping address. Can apply to sub-companies or individuals.


Additional Individual Information

Job Title

250 character max. 

Personal Address1

255 character max. Can be used for info like home address.

Personal Address2

255 character max.

Personal City

255 character max.

Personal State

50 character max.

Personal Zip

10 character max.

Personal Country

50 character max.

Personal Email

100 character max.

Personal Credentials

255 character max. Must be separated by a semi-colon.

Home Phone

25 character max. Preferred format: (123) 456-7890 ext 1234

Mobile Phone 

25 character max. Preferred format: (123) 456-7890 ext 1234


Other Fields

Member Profile

2000 character max. This is a description (for company records) or a bio (for individual records) that will appear on their directory profile. Members and individuals will be able to update this information from their Member Compass.

Facebook URL

255 character max.

LinkedIn URL 

255 character max.

Instagram Handle

50 character max.

Twitter Handle

50 character max.

Create User Account

This allows an individual's user account to be created upon import, which means the first time they visit the website they'll just need to request a password reset, instead of going through an account creation process. Enter "Yes" in this column or leave blank for no. This is optional but recommended.

Requirements for User Accounts:

  • Must have a valid email address.

  • Must be a person record. 

  • Must be a unique email address across people that are creating user accounts. Note: A person record can have the same contact email address as another record, but not the same user account email address.

Management Access

If a person needs to have management access to a company record and they are not the Primary or Billing Contact, you can give them privileges by entering "True" in this column.

Please Note: During import, this only gives them access to their parent company (and subsequently any sub-companies). To give someone management access to a specific company in the family tree that is not their parent company, you can do so in Novi after the import.

Hide On Website

Enter "True" if the member should not appear in the member directory -- or leave blank for false.

Taxable

If you have members who are tax-exempt, use this column to identify them (by typing "no"). Otherwise, you can leave this column blank, since Novi by default assumes all members are taxable.

Tax Exemption Reason

You must provide a tax exemption reason for any non-taxable members. If you put "no" in the Taxable column, specify one of the following reasons:

  • Federal government

  • State government

  • Local government

  • Tribal government

  • Charitable organization

  • Religious organization

  • Educational organization

  • Hospital

  • Resale

  • Direct pay permit

  • Multiple points of use

  • Direct mail

  • Agricultural production

  • Industrial production/manufacturing

  • Foreign diplomat

Alternatively, if all your tax-exempt members share the same reason, you can set a default reason in your Association Settings prior to import.

Default Billable Party for Dues Override

If a member's default billable party for dues differs from the rest of their member type, you can specify the correct billable party here.


Custom Fields

These are others fields that you need to import on your member records specific to your association. This will be discussed during your data call and/or in on onboarding meeting. 4000 character max. Each custom field needs its own column.

For any data you wish to import that does not belong in a column above, create a new column in the spreadsheet. Please provide Novi with details for each custom field: should it be a dropdown, checkbox, numerical field, etc. 

For custom fields that hold more than one value (a multi-select dropdown), the values should be semi-colon separated (e.g. "value 1;value 2;value 3").

Sum numerical custom fields

For members where a numerical custom field's value is derived from the sum of their "children's" values, that can be set up in the spreadsheet. You'll want to make sure that the custom field is set to "Sum Children's Values," then simply set their value as SUM instead of a number.

For an example of this, see below:

  • Parent Company = ABC Company

  • XYZ Company and QRS Company are sub-companies of ABC Company

  • XYZ Company field value = 4, QRS Company field value = 6

  • ABC Company value would automatically = 10, and would auto-update whenever the values of one of the sub-companies changed.


FAQs

Can I leave some data out of the spreadsheet for now and have the Novi team do a bulk update after data import?

Not recommended. For all customer information fields, any changes you want to make to multiple records at once should be done during initial data import on the spreadsheet. 

The only way to update fields in bulk is through import, and bulk updating record information after your initial import has been completed is risky in terms of compromising your existing data that's not changing in the system and your QuickBooks Online data, so we do not recommend this. 

If it is very important to you and we are able to do so with the particular field, this will incur a charge at the contracted development rate.

Of course, if there is any data that your staff is fine with manually updating on each record after import, that is completely fine. While bringing it in on your initial spreadsheet will be the quickest way, the data is yours to work with!

What does "approval" of the data mean?

In order to ensure that your data import in to Novi is as clean and thorough as possible, we will have you approve the data once it is in the system. 

You will receive concierge onboarding service and guidance throughout the import process, but your team is responsible for exporting your data from your current system and ensuring that the final data file you provide to us is complete and accurate for import.

Once the member data import is complete, the Novi team will reach out to you for review and approval. Please take special care to review all data imported in to the system and let us know immediately if you see anything that you have questions on prior to approval of the data so that we can work with you to get it updated. 

Once approved, any rollbacks or changes needed to the database (by the Novi team) will incur an additional charge (see question above) and may push back your launch date.

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