Ability to clear out contact fields when uploading contact file

[BarbaraK185]

We need to be able to delete our present contact list and reload a list without your system reloading old data not need any more. Example: we stopped using city, state addresses and wanted to just have first, last names, email address, home and mobile phone. When we reloaded that data your system reloaded the city, state addresses from your saved file.

We need an option when we delete to delete all and retain none of the old info, so we can reload our changed files without you reloading not need data.

I understand unsubscribed email and you put them back in the unsubscribed mail list.

[girlsschool]

Having to go into each list one at a time is too time-consuming. We clear and re-upload 14 lists every week. Doing this one at a time will be a much longer process.

[forbes]

I wish you would consider bringing back the previous method of adding deleting contacts and clearing lists. This "new" way is really annoying

[GayleV1]

Currently the only way to clear a data field in a contacts info is to manually go in to each contact and delete the fields. That is SOOOOO very time consuming it's ridiculous! I want to be able to clear a field by simply uploading an empty cell in my Excel spreadsheet.

[Beatriz_R]

Hello @BarbaraK185,

Thank you for this feedback. To clarify, have you removed this data from the Excel file you're uploading as well? If not and it is still on the file, you can also select which columns you want Constant Contact to bring in: https://knowledgebase.constantcontact.com/articles/KnowledgeBase/5296-import-or-upload-a-file-of-con....

Are you able to specify where exactly the issue is occurring? Do the above steps help at all?

[AdrianB935]

There should be the ability to completely erase a contact list so "the system" does not fill in fields with information that needs to be purged!

[MarkK071]

Is there a way to globally delete all information in custom fields? When we switched to Constant from Cooler Email, the custom fields copied over and now I cannot add a List until I delete those fields and I have to do it one by one.

[Frankie_P]

Hi @MarkK071 custom fields can currently be deleted from an account one by one through the "Manage my custom fields" section of your Account Settings. Where would you like to find a feature to delete your custom fields? What steps would you want to take to bulk delete these details? Would you expect these fields to be removed completely from your account or for the fields under your contacts to simply be cleared?

[MarcN3]

I used to be able to upload my contacts via an Excel spreadsheet including any custom fields. I just realized it stopped updating my custom fields some time ago. I was told to remove my formatting, get rid of my other tabs and to not use formulas in my spreadsheet. What is the purpose of using Excel if I can't use its most basic features. Now I have to do twice the amount of work to support your "improved" contacts functionality. I'm not very happy with this current state of affairs. 

[Frankie_P]

Hi @MarcN3 what are some cases where you use tabs or formulas for your contact excel files? Also, what is the experience you're having with updating your custom fields by file? How are these fields saved on your excel file? While contact tags cannot currently be updated by file, custom fields do have the ability to be updated by file.

[MarcN3]

I manage all of my clients in an Excel spreadsheet. The data I need to manage cannot be maintained in a single tab. I pull some of the data into the first tab from subsequent tabs via formulas which were then loaded into custom fields for each contact in Constant Contact. The upload from file worked fine with these spreadsheets until you updated your import/upload process. After that happened none of the values in the cells that contained formulas are imported.  To work around that process I had to create three new columns and then manually type the values into those cells to match the data populated by the formula in another cell. This is not optimal as that can be error prone which is why I was using formulas in the first place which is a basic feature of Excel. I don't understand why you would change this process on your end which prevents the user from utilizing the most basic Excel features.

[RobinT743]

It would be really helpful to have a way to update a contact list so that a custom field can be blanked out. Sometimes we have a long list of records to update, and having to do it individually is tedious.