Import contacts and matters into Clio Grow
Importing contacts and matters into Clio Grow is difficult and prone to human error.
Important: This article describes how to import contacts and/or matters to Clio Grow from a third-party application. If you are attempting to sync information between Clio Manage and Grow, follow the instructions to Connect Clio Grow and Clio Manage.
Tip: Start with a small number of contact and/or matter records as a test import to ensure that you understand the process. Once you are satisfied with the test import, you can import the remaining records with ease.
Step 1: Prepare your import using Clio's CSV template
When preparing your file for import, it should be formatted correctly to avoid issues, such as:
- Contact duplicates.
- Contacts with another contact's details.
- Contact data added to the wrong field. This can happen if you accidentally add data to the wrong column.
To reduce the risk of these issues, you can do a spot check of a few rows, including the first and last rows to confirm that the data is correct for that contact and in the right column.
Important: Import contacts and matters using the template provided by Clio. Using any other template increases the risk of introducing errors in the data.
Note: If you want to include locations and custom fields in the import, you will need to add these to Clio Grow before beginning the import. Additionally, you cannot import the following types of custom fields into Clio Grow: dropdown/picklist, checkbox, contact select, and matter select.
- Check that your data is correct. You cannot delete Clio Grow contacts or matters in bulk.
- Download this Clio Grow import CSV template.
- Enter your contact and matter data into the template according to ALL of the following directions:
Contacts- For person contacts, the First Name and Last Name columns are required information. All other fields are optional, including fields associated with matter information.
- For company contacts, the Company column is required information. All other fields are optional.
- Company contacts should be listed before any person contacts.
- You can add multiple tags for a single contact. Tags should be separated using semicolons.
- Emails, phone numbers, and website custom fields should not be hyperlinked. Hyperlinked information will cause an error. You can avoid this by saving the document as a CSV before starting the import.
Matters- Contacts can be imported without matter information, but to import matters, a contact first and last name or company name is required for each matter.
- If matter information is included, the Matter Type, Matter Status, and Description fields are required.
- Review your CSV file to ensure that all the data is entered correctly and remove the information in the template file that provided context, that is:
- Delete the example and explanation rows from the template (i.e. rows 2 and 3).
- Delete all the rows that provide information about the colour key used in the header (first row).
- Delete any other empty rows and/or columns.
- Delete the first column (i.e. the columns that provide information about the first 3 rows in the original template).
Note: Delete any rows for contacts that are already in Clio Grow. The import process does not check for duplicates. Not removing these contacts will result in duplicates in Clio Grow.
- Save the file as a CSV file to your computer.
Step 2: Import the CSV into Clio Grow
Note: If you want any custom fields that were previously created in Clio Manage to be available for use during the import process, make sure to Sync Clio Manage custom fields to Clio Grow before continuing with the steps below.
- In Clio Grow, go to Settings > Import data.
- Click Import from spreadsheet.
- Click Select A File, then choose and upload your saved CSV file.
- Click Continue.
- Map the fields from your file to Clio Grow fields.
- The column on the left shows the column names (row 1) from your file. Use the dropdowns in the column on the right to map the appropriate Clio Grow fields to those in your spreadsheet.
- If you do not want to import data for a particular field, don't select a Clio Grow field option for it.
- When you are done, click Import Contacts and wait for the file to process.
- Once the file is processed, review the contacts that were imported.
Note: You cannot delete contacts in bulk in Clio Grow. This review screen is an opportunity to remove contacts you do not want to import. To delete a contact, check the contact's checkbox, then click Remove Selected Contacts.
- Click Done when you are ready to finalise the import.