The Importer offers two modes. The right choice depends on whether the records you’re loading have relationships to each other.
Single import
A single import loads one type of entity from one CSV. Each row becomes a record; there are no cross-row relationships beyond what’s already in the data.
Best for:
- A list of donors with no organisational affiliation to import
- A spreadsheet of payments to attach to existing contacts
- A simple touchpoint dump from another system
Pipeline import
A pipeline import loads several entity types from a single file in a defined order, with later steps able to reference records created in earlier steps.
The classic example: a spreadsheet that has both contacts and the organisations they work for. You want to create the organisations first, then create the contacts and link each one to its organisation in the same operation.
A pipeline is a sequence of steps. Each step picks an entity type and its own column mappings. Order matters — if step 2 links to a record from step 1, step 1 must run first.
Choosing
Reach for a pipeline import only when the records have relationships you need to create at import time. If you are loading entities that are only loosely related (or already exist), a single import — possibly several of them in sequence — is simpler.