Administrator Guide · A8

Import & export

Moving records in and out of TechieCRM. Everything here lives under the application icon button (top-left corner) ▸ Import/Export/Transfer.

In this appendix - Creating a Mongo database - Importing records from CSV / Excel - Exporting - Not yet available

Creating a Mongo database

Application menu ▸ Create Mongo Database… creates a new, empty TechieCRM database on this computer's local MongoDB — for a new company, a sandbox, or a dataset you're about to import. Give it a name (letters, digits, - or _); TechieCRM sets up the core structure, adds you as its first user (so you can sign straight into it), and then offers to import records into it right away.

To work in the new database: sign out, click the login dialog's … browse button to open Open Database Server, choose MongoDB (local) in the Source CRM selector, and pick the database from the list (TechieCRM databases are marked ✓), then Open.

Importing records from CSV / Excel

Application menu ▸ Import/Export/Transfer ▸ Import from CSV / Excel…

  1. Pick the file — .csv or Excel .xlsx. The first row must be column headings; every following row is one record. In an Excel workbook TechieCRM reads the first sheet that actually contains data, so a cover or instructions sheet in front of your records is simply skipped; "the file has no data rows" therefore means every sheet is empty. A CSV field wrapped in quotes may contain line breaks (Excel's wrapped text) — the line breaks are kept.
  2. Pick the target database (any local TechieCRM Mongo database — New Database… creates one without leaving the wizard) and say whether the rows are Companies or Individuals (people). Changing the database after the mapping is on screen asks first — the mapping is rebuilt from the new database's own fields, so anything you re-pointed or skipped by hand goes back to the automatic guess. Answer No and both the database and your mapping stay exactly as they were.
  3. Review the column mapping. TechieCRM matches your headings automatically — to standard fields (Name/Company, First name, Email, Phone, Address, City, Category…) and to the target database's own defined fields (a heading that matches an existing user-defined field fills that field, typed: dates and numbers land as real dates and numbers, not text). Any column can be re-pointed with its drop-down: - standard fields — including several phone columns at once (each becomes its own labelled phone number); - defined fields — the target database's existing user-defined fields; - Custom field (keep column name) — the default for anything unrecognized: the column is imported under its own heading as a custom field, so nothing in your file is lost; - — skip — to leave a column out.

Two columns pointed at the same field: several Phone columns are normal — each becomes its own labelled phone number. For any other standard field the first column fills it and the extra column is kept as a custom field under its own heading, so the second value is never lost. Dates in a Date field are read either way round: 2026-01-15, 15-Jan-2026, January 15, 2026, 01/15/2026 and day-first 15/01/2026 all land as real dates. An all-numeric date that could be read both ways (01/02/2026) is treated as month-first — 2 January.

Two options match what you may know from your source CRM: First row is column headings (untick it when the file starts straight at the data — the row and column count under the table updates as you tick it) and Convert names to Name Case (ALL-CAPS or all-lower names become Name Case; mixed-case names like McDonald are kept exactly as typed). 4. Import. The wizard reports exactly what happened: how many records were created and how many rows were skipped (a row is only skipped when its Name column is empty — TechieCRM never invents a record). If the write fails part-way it says how many records were created before the error and warns that re-running the whole file would duplicate them (there is no duplicate matching on import) — import only the remaining rows, or delete the imported ones first.

Imported records are full TechieCRM records — they open, edit, list, and (when cloud sync is on for that database) sync like any others.

Exporting

Application menu ▸ Import/Export/Transfer ▸ Export to Excel (also the ribbon's Export and the Quick Shortcuts button) opens the export preview. The column headers run across the top, and the grid reads top-to-bottom as Include, Format, then a sample of the records to be exported (up to the first 5 — fewer if you selected fewer), and finally Total as the last row:

  • Column setup (top) — pick a saved column setup to start from; the preview rebuilds to match. Defaults to the columns showing in the panel.
  • Include — tick a column to export it (add a hidden field or drop one).
  • Format — how each column is written: Text, Number, Currency, Date or Percent. TechieCRM guesses from the column name and content, and in an .xlsx the value is written as a real Excel number/date (right in the cell, not text) with the matching number format. A Currency column writes a negative value as -$50.00, with the minus sign before the dollar sign (Chapter 7, How money is written); text that is not a number is exported unchanged.
  • records — a live sample of the exact rows that will be exported, so you can confirm the selection before saving.
  • Total — an optional per-column footer: Sum, Count, Average, Min or Max, written in bold as the last row under the data.

Above the preview: an Export field headers toggle (on by default), a Selected records / Showing list picker, and a File type picker (Excel .xlsx default, or CSV .csv). Selected records exports exactly the rows you marked in the list (the highlighted rows); Showing list exports every row currently shown. At the bottom, Where (folder) is on its own row; the Save As (file name) field, Save and Cancel share the line below it, with the field taking about half the width and the buttons to the right. The preview is tall enough to show every row at once; scroll it sideways when a setup has more columns than fit.

Not yet available

Importing directly into the source CRM (SQL) database (imports target Mongo databases); contact children under an imported company; duplicate matching on import; year-end accounting export; scheduled/recurring imports.