Data Import - Bands/Groups

Sonido offers a convenient Band/Group import wizard, allowing you to import your Band/Group records and relevant information into your Sonido account quickly and easily. Due to some required fields or data structures, some formatting of your Band/Group list may be necessary in order to support a successful data import. 

IMPORT TEMPLATE

For your convenience, Sonido offers a Band/Group import template that you may download and use. This template includes all the supported Band/Group headers in a .csv format. You can use this template to organize your own Band/Group list and streamline your import process.

DOWNLOAD BAND/GROUP IMPORT TEMPLATE

IMPORT PROCESS

The following video provides a comprehensive walkthrough of the process of importing your Band/Group records with Sonido Software. 

The following are guidelines to follow that related to the supported fields in the Band/Group import process. 

• Name - REQUIRED. Your Band/Group import must include a Name for every Band record. This would be the name of the Band. 
• Genre- REQUIRED. Your Band/Group import must include a Genre for every record. The Genre option in your import spreadsheet MUST exist within Sonido under the Genre picklist options. If your spreadsheet import has genres that do not exist as options within the Genre picklist field within Sonido, you will need to create each Genre option within the Sonido Genre picklist before importing to avoid an import error. You may review the PICKLIST MANAGEMENT guide to learn how to add the necessary Genre options within the Genre picklist field. The data in your Band/Group import list MUST be an EXACT match to what is in Sonido's Picklist Management.
• Studio Experience - REQUIRED. Your Band/Group import must include a Studio Experience selection for every Band/Group record. The Studio Experience field must contain one of the following: None, Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert. If you don't know what option to add, feel free to add "None" to every record in your Band/Group import list to successfully import.
• Street - You may add the street address to each Band/Group record as a part of the full address.
• City - You may add the city to each Band/Group record as a part of the full address.
• State - You may add the state to each Band/Group record as a part of the full address.
• Postal Code - You may add the postal code to each Band/Group record as a part of the full address.
• Country - You may add the country to each Band/Group record as a part of the full address.
• Primary Contact Email - If you have existing contacts within Sonido that you would like to add as a primary contact on the Band/Group record, you can add the email address for that contact. This will automatically attach that contact to the Band/Group record after the import. The contact record with the associated email address MUST exist within Sonido prior to the Band/Group import for this Primary Contact Email to be successful. 

IMPORTING BANDS/GROUPS

After formatting your Band/Group import list to include the supported column headers and cleaning the data as described for each field above, you are now ready to import your list into Sonido. 

You can navigate to the "Settings" menu and select "Data Import" from the options.

In the Data Import screen, select the "Select Data" button and choose the appropriate record type for your data import. In this case, we'll select "Band/Groups."

Next, you will select the "Select File" button to browse your local computer or device for the cleaned Band/Group import list that you've prepared. The import supports the .csv file format, so be sure that your file has been saved in the appropriate format.

For a successful import, be sure that your Band/Group import file has a single row of column headers that denote what the column data contains, and the Band/Group data begins on the second row of the spreadsheet. If you have multiple header rows before your Band/Group list data begins, remove any unnecessary headers so that your list only has one row for the column headers. 

The next screen in the Band/Group import wizard displays your Band/Group list data and allows you to map the fields for the import. In the view, the top row includes the column headers from your spreadsheet, and there will be one or more samples of the data from your Band/Group import in the following rows.

At the bottom of this view, the final row includes mapping dropdown fields that represent Sonido Band/Group data fields to select from. If your column headers in your Band/Group import are an exact match with the names of the Sonido fields, the mapping selection will automatically be selected; otherwise, select the appropriate Sonido field that matches your data column. 

When you are ready, select the "Start Import" button to import your Band/Group records. You will see a confirmation message as soon as the import has completely successfully. 

MANAGING ERRORS

When importing your Band/Group list, you may see error messages if the import process cannot complete successfully. These error messages may be caused by incorrectly formatted data, empty required fields, etc. The error messages provide details as to any changes that need to be made within your Band/Group import sheet before attempting to import again. 

In this example, the error message indicates that there is an "Invalid Contact Type "Lead Band Tour Manager" in one or more rows" (this example is related to a Contact import, but the same applies to Band/Group records generally). What this means is that either you have options in your Contact import list under the "Contact Type" column that do not exist within the related Sonido picklist field (See PICKLIST MANAGEMENT guide to learn how to add the necessary Contact Type options within the Contact Type picklist field) or there is some other difference between these options (i.e. one or more fields in your Contact import sheet may have a space after the Contact Type name, or an additional character that would constitute a non-exact match). Once the correction(s) are made, you can then attempt the import again.

Other examples may indicate that certain required fields are missing from your Contact import list. In this case, one or more records are missing data in the "Email" field, which is required for import. You would need to go through your Contact import list and add any missing data, then attempt the import again. The same applies to any required fields on the Band/Group record.