Getting your stakeholder data into SRM | Civio Engage Knowledge Base [Skip to content](#main) [ ![Civio Engage Knowledge Base](/civio-light.svg) ](https://engage.knowledge.civ.io) [Product documentation](/articles) [Release notes](/releases) [Roadmap](/roadmap) [ Support portal ](https://engage.knowledge.civ.io/portal/login) Toggle navigation [Product documentation](/articles) [Release notes](/releases) [Roadmap](/roadmap) [Support portal](https://engage.knowledge.civ.io/portal/login) 1. [Home](/) › 2. [Product documentation](/articles) › 3. [Stakeholder Management](/articles?category=16) › 4. Getting your stakeholder data into SRM Getting your stakeholder data into SRM ====================================== Updated 4 weeks ago · 5 min read Search Search Most teams arrive at SRM with stakeholder data already spread across spreadsheets, mailing lists and individual inboxes. This article covers the sequence for consolidating that into one register, the four routes in, and the decisions to settle before any data moves. The six steps ------------- 1. **Agree the data structure.** Decide what a stakeholder record holds, then build it as [custom fields](/articles/custom-fields-for-srm-records). Everything downstream maps onto this. 2. **Agree the organisation list.** Organisations are a controlled list and the main source of duplication. 3. **Collect and deduplicate the source lists.** One spreadsheet, one row per person. 4. **Decide team ownership** for each record before it lands. 5. **Import.** 6. **Clean up**: assign groups and initiatives, and check what came through. Steps 1 to 4 all shape what the import maps onto, so settle them before any data moves. Step 1: Agree the data structure -------------------------------- Start from the built-in fields, because those need no configuration: - **Name** and **Description** - **Contacts**: one or more cards, each with an organisation, job title, location, email, phone and address - **Influence level**, **Interest level**, **Sentiment** - **Relationship Owner(s)**, **Initiative(s)**, **Group(s)** - **Team** Then look at what your source lists hold that has nowhere to go, and add those as custom fields. Use a **Drop-down** rather than free text for anything you will filter or report on: a text field filters on a partial match of whatever each source list happened to type. Write the agreed structure down as a column list. That becomes the header row of the migration spreadsheet. Step 2: Agree the organisation list ----------------------------------- Build the canonical list first, settle a naming convention, and load organisations before stakeholders so contact cards have something to point at. Nothing in SRM merges two organisation records, and nothing creates an organisation from a survey answer or an email domain. See [Organisations](/articles/organisations). Step 3: Collect and deduplicate ------------------------------- Consolidate every source list into one spreadsheet, one row per person, then deduplicate **before** the import. **SRM does not deduplicate for you.** A contact email is not treated as unique: two stakeholder records can carry the same address, and you get no warning. There is also no merge tool, so two records for the same person stay two records. Match on email rather than name, and watch two cases: - **The same person on two addresses**, a work and a personal one. That is one stakeholder with **two contact cards**, not two records. - **The same person in two teams' lists**, which is also one record. Which team owns it is step 4. Where email is missing, match by hand. Step 4: Decide team ownership ----------------------------- Every SRM record belongs to **one** team, or to none. A record with no team is visible to everyone. Two questions to settle before the import: - **Is this register a shared pool or a set of separate lists?** If most teams should see most stakeholders, leave records without a team and use [groups](/articles/groups) for each team's working list. If they are genuinely separate, set the owning team per record. - **Which records need restricting?** Those are the ones to put in a restricted team. A person can belong to several teams, so a colleague who works across two areas sees both teams' records. See [Teams in SRM](/articles/teams-in-srm). **Relationship Owner(s) is not an access control.** Naming someone as relationship owner records who leads the relationship; it does not restrict who can see or edit the record. Step 5: Choose how the data gets in ----------------------------------- Route When to use it **A one-off import run by Civio** The usual route for a migration. Send your prepared spreadsheet with the agreed columns, and Civio maps it (custom fields included) and loads it. Raise it through [support](/articles/getting-support). **The API** An ongoing sync from another system, or scripted classification of records in bulk. Stakeholders, organisations, initiatives, issues and interactions all have endpoints. See [Working with the Civio Engage API](/articles/working-with-the-civio-engage-api). **A survey handler** Letting people add or refresh their own details rather than you typing them. See [Capturing stakeholders from a survey](/articles/capturing-stakeholders-from-a-survey). **By hand** Small numbers, or records that need judgement. See [Stakeholders](/articles/stakeholders). There is no self-service spreadsheet importer for stakeholders in the dashboard. A migration goes through Civio or through the API. Step 6: The clean-up pass ------------------------- Bring the records in first, then do the relationship work in bulk from the stakeholders list. [Filtering, columns and bulk updates in SRM](/articles/filtering-columns-and-bulk-updates-in-srm) covers the mechanics. The moves to make: 1. Switch on the **Team**, **Group(s)** and **Owner(s)** columns so you can see what is set and what is not. 2. Filter to the records you have just loaded, and use **Set team** where ownership was not in the source data. 3. Use **Edit associations** to attach **Group(s)**, **Initiative(s)** and **Relationship Owner(s)** to whole cohorts at once. 4. Use **Change scores** to set a sensible starting Influence, Interest and Sentiment for a cohort where the source data had none. 5. Spot-check for gaps: filter on a custom field to find records where it is empty, and sort by **Name** to eyeball near-duplicates that survived the spreadsheet pass. ![The stakeholders list after an import, with the Team, Group(s) and Owner(s) columns switched on and rows ticked ready for a bulk Set team](https://engage.knowledge.civ.io/storage/vrbC5MzBL5RUn38QkbTICjxnqwoUbAngIFwLxdWn.png) What happens to user accounts ----------------------------- Importing stakeholders does **not** create user accounts, and it does not email anyone. If an imported contact email already belongs to an account, the two are matched automatically and a **Website user** badge appears on the contact card. See [Users and stakeholders in SRM](/articles/users-and-stakeholders-in-srm). If you want imported stakeholders to register, that is a separate step: email them from the platform inviting them to sign up, or point them at a survey that requires a signed-in submitter, which creates the account as part of the flow. See [Sending emails](/articles/10500015158799-Sending-emails). Whether you need consent to hold stakeholder details, and how long you keep them, is your organisation's call rather than the platform's. SRM has no retention rules and no archive state: a record stays as it was last saved until someone updates it. Related articles ---------------- - [Custom fields for SRM records](/articles/custom-fields-for-srm-records) - [Users and stakeholders in SRM](/articles/users-and-stakeholders-in-srm) - [Organisations](/articles/organisations) - [Filtering, columns and bulk updates in SRM](/articles/filtering-columns-and-bulk-updates-in-srm) Was this article helpful? ------------------------- Your feedback helps us prioritise what to rewrite. 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