Importing and Adding Names
People are at the heart of everything in ChurchTrac. That's why we've made the process of importing your people into ChurchTrac really easy. You can import your people data in two different ways:
- Have us import your data from another church software (Easiest)
- Have us import your data from a spreadsheet
Join our next Getting Started Workshop
Importing from another Church Software
If you are using another cloud-based church software, our team can export your people data from it into ChurchTrac. To do this, create a support ticket and provide us with the following:
- The provider name
- Your login credentials
- Your password
Importing from a Spreadsheet
We've included a spreadsheet template file that you can open in Excel, Numbers, or your favorite spreadsheet application. If you're not familiar with using a spreadsheet application, please ask for assistance, either from us or from someone you know who can help. We recommend that you use this template as a starting point or reference. If you already have a spreadsheet that contains the data you wish to import, you can use our template to guide you.
Each row of your spreadsheet should contain information for only one individual. If you are importing 150 people, then your spreadsheet will have 151 rows (one row for each person, plus a header row indicating what data is found in each column).
Each column in your spreadsheet will contain a specific type of data, like First Name, Mobile Phone, Email Address, and so on. You should set up your spreadsheet with the columns as described below.
REQUIRED FIELDS
COLUMN A: FIRST NAME (Required). Do not leave this field blank, and do not combine multiple first names together in one row (DO NOT DO THIS: George & Martha). Instead, put George on the first row with his information, and Martha on another row with her information. If you need to add a suffix or middle initial, add it to this column (Like this: George E. or George, Jr.).
COLUMN B: LAST NAME (Required). Do not leave this field blank. Do not add a suffix for middle initial to the Last Name column (use the First Name column instead!)
NOTE: Everyone in your database must have a unique name (You can't have two Bill Smiths). The ChurchTrac importer will skip any rows where the first and last name fields are an exact match to another row. If two people share the same name, you should add something to the First Name field of both rows to distinguish between these two individuals. For example, you can add Jr., Sr., a middle initial, or even a nickname to the First Name field, allowing our import script to process and import all rows.
COLUMN C: FAMILY NAME/ASSIGNMENT (Required). Do not leave this field blank. The data in this column should be entered in the following format: LASTNAME, FirstName and SpouseName. We recommend that you use ALL CAPS for the LASTNAME portion of the family name. Leave off the SpouseName part if that doesn't apply. Every member of a family, including the children, should have the exact same value in the Family Name column on your spreadsheet! A person's family assignment in ChurchTrac will be made based on the value of this column.
Importing FAQS
Your first import is free in ChurchTrac. We recommend submitting a data import to our team when you have all the people information that you need to be imported.
Yes! We recommend having us import your data on a trial, as it gives you a better idea on how ChurchTrac can help your ministry.
Unfortunately no. We discontinued support for ChurchTrac 9 and below and are no longer able to import ChurchTrac 9 files.
To import giving data for your people, see our Importing Contributions article.