Upload Errors

The Upload Tool (accessed via People > Contacts >  List Uploads) is a wizard based process that is pretty user friendly, but because of the broad spectrum of database programs clients use, there are some errors that come up occasionally:

• Empty Rows
• Empty Column Names
• Duplicate Field Names
• Duplicate Emails
• Invalid Emails
• The Validation Page is Blank and Will Not Allow You to Proceed

Empty Rows

This means that you either:

• Have a row in the middle of your data that is empty.
• Converted the file from Excel and have some 'hidden' data below your visible data.
• Are trying to upload a file that has only email addresses for some records.

You may have a row in the middle of your data that is empty. You can check this easily by sorting the file by the unique identifier (Contact ID or email address.) Next, check to see if there is a highlighted area that ends in the middle of your file. The sort of information will typically stop at a blank row. Last, check the bottom of the file to see if there are any blank rows and delete them.

You may have converted the file from Excel and have some 'hidden' data below your visible data. Go to the very end of your rows with data and delete 10-20 empty rows, and then do the same thing with the first 10-20 empty columns for good measure. That usually solves the issue.

You may be trying to upload a file that has only email addresses for some records. Because the email address is being used as the unique identifier, you must include some other value along with email. If you have people's names, physical addresses, phone numbers, custom fields, etc., be sure to include those in the update as well. If you don't have that sort of information, you can just make up a new column to import into the file. Add a new column called whatever you'd like. In the value for each person's record just add "Yes" (without quotes). In the administrator site, go to People > Manage Custom Fields and create a new Yes/No field to house those Yes values. In the upload process, make sure to map your column with "Yes" values to the custom field you created. Then you shouldn't have issues.

Empty Column Names

This means that you either:

• Have a column without any value / field name in Row 1.
• Converted the file from Excel and have some 'hidden' data in there.

Check to make sure that every column includes an appropriate (and unique) field names. Some spreadsheet programs don’t protect that first row when you sort the file, so it is possible that your field names were mixed in with the rest of your data.

You may have converted the file from Excel and have some 'hidden' data off to the side. Go to the very end of your columns with data and delete 10-20 empty columns, and then do the same thing with the first 10-20 empty rows for good measure. That usually solves the issue.

Duplicate Field Names

This will occur when two or more field names are the same - most commonly Address, Email, or ID if you have multiple ways of identifying a member. Check through your spreadsheet to make sure that every field name is unique. Part of the list updating process requires that you tell us which of your fields should map to which of our fields, so it is vital that you not have multiple fields that are indistinguishable based on name.

Duplicate Unique IDs

When you update your list, regardless of what you use as the unique identifier, all of the IDs in your file must be unique. You'll need to clean up any duplicates before importing your list into the system. Here's how to do that:

The system will detect duplicate IDs and let you know what they are, but you can also find them on your end by following these instructions:

1. Sort the Contact ID / Email column in your file from A to Z.
2. Create a new, blank column to the right of the email address column and call it "dupes".
3. In the first cell of the new column, enter in this formula (without quotes): "=IF(A1=A2;1;0)". You'll want to make sure that "A" in the formula is set to the letter of the column your IDs are in. So if they are in the first column, you'll use A, but if they're in the fifth column, you'll use "E".
4. Copy that formula down to all of the cells in the blank column until the end of the IDs.
5. Copy the entire column and repaste it in, choosing to paste as plain text.
6. Give the column a header of "dupes" again and sort it.

Now that "dupes" column will have a 0 if the ID is not a duplicate and a 1 if it is a duplicate. For each row with a one, remove that row in the spreadsheet and save it. This should clear all of the duplicates out of your file and allow you to upload it successfully.

If you use a spreadsheet program that does not accept the formula above, perform a quick Google search for “finding duplicates in [name of program].”

Invalid Emails

When you update your list using email address as the unique identifier, all of the email addresses in your file must be valid (or at least validly formatted). You cannot have any emails that aren't actually email addresses.

If you have invalid emails, you want to look for emails that aren't formatted correctly or are clearly incorrect. For example: Joesite.com is not an email address. [e-mail] is. If you have an invalid email address in the file you need to either correct it or remove the entire row for that person.

In many spreadsheet programs, you can perform a search using "regular expressions" that will help out. You'll need to select the column containing the email addresses, and then make sure you're ONLY searching within that selection AND you have 'regular expressions' checked. Then search for this:

^((?!(\.net)|(\.com)|(\.org)|(\.edu)|(\.gov)|(\.us)|(\.mil)|(\.biz)).)*$

That should find any value in the email address column that doesn't end with at least one of the common domain name endings. You can keep searching one by one to find any instances of that in the file.

You may also want to perform a 'normal' search for instances of:

• .com.
• .org.
• .net.
• /com
• etc.

Those are common errors as well.

The Validation Page is Blank and Will Not Allow You to Proceed

This will occur if one of two things has happened on the Field Mappings page:

• You mapped a field from your file to more than one field in VoterVoice.
• You mapped a field that includes no information.

First, click the back button until you return to the Field Mappings page in the Upload tool so you can make sure that none of your fields are mapped to multiple VoterVoice fields.

If that is not the culprit, return to your spreadsheet and confirm that there is content (beyond the field name) in every column that you mapped. Many fields will not have any immediately visible content, but you can sort the file by those columns real quickly in order to ensure that there is some content. If there isn’t, delete that column to make sure that you don’t accidentally map it and then re-upload the file.