Getting started

Import your leads from a CSV or Excel file

Bring an existing lead list into ViveLead in one upload: the column names the importer already understands, and what to do about the rows it flags before you press Import.

Last updated 13 Sep 2026 · 5 min read

This gets an existing lead list out of a spreadsheet and into ViveLead. A clean file of a few thousand rows takes a couple of minutes, most of which is spent checking the preview before you commit.

Before you start

Your role needs the Lead Create Bulk permission. If the option is missing from the menu, ask your admin to switch it on for your role under Users, then Roles.
Import is available on every plan.
The file can be .csv, .xlsx or .xls, up to 50 MB. Only the first sheet is read.
Every row needs an email and a phone number. Rows missing either are flagged before anything is uploaded, and you decide whether to leave them out.

Steps

Open Leads, then the more actions menu in the toolbar. Under the Import heading, click Bulk upload CSV. If your lead list is still empty, the Import a list button on the empty state opens the same dialog.
Click Download Sample. The sample is built from your own lead form, so the columns are the fields your team actually uses, plus an assignedTo column for the owner and a Created Date column for the original date. It saves as leads-bulk-upload.csv.
Put your data under those headers, then save the file. Header matching ignores case, spaces, underscores and hyphens, so Phone No, phone_no and phoneno are all the same column. Any header the importer does not recognise is kept as a custom field under the name you gave it, so you do not have to delete columns you care about.
Click the upload area and choose your file. The dialog switches to a preview of every row, with the problems marked in colour. Nothing has been written to your account yet at this point.
Read the summary chips above the table. They tell you whether any row is missing a value, holds a phone number that could not be read, or repeats another row in the same file. Owner names that match nobody in your account are listed by name.
Choose how to handle the flagged rows. Skip incomplete rows imports only the clean ones. The other mode brings everything in, including the incomplete rows, so you can fix them inside the CRM later.
Click Import. The confirmation tells you how many rows went in and how many were skipped, for example Imported 420 rows. 6 skipped (incomplete). Your lead list refreshes behind the dialog, and the imported leads are there to filter and assign.

What each column becomes

Lands in	Headers that map to it
Name	name
Email	email, mail id, email id, email address
Phone	phone, phone no, phone number, mobile, mobile no, contact no, contact number
Address	address
Source	source
Stage	stage
Status	status
Owner	owner, owners, assigned to, assign to, assigned owner, lead owner
Original date	created at, created date, creation date, lead date, date

Three things worth knowing about how those are read:

Dates are read day first. 03/06/2026 is 3 June, not 6 March. Writing dates as 2026-06-03 removes the guesswork. Leave the column blank and the lead is dated the day you imported it.
The owner is matched on name or email, against users who are active in your account. If the name matches nobody, or matches two people, the lead still imports and simply arrives unassigned.
A cell holding several numbers is split. 022 28371920, 9820098200 keeps the mobile as the lead’s phone number and parks the rest in an Other Numbers column, so nothing is lost and the number you dial is the one that works.

What the import does not bring

Notes and activity history from your old CRM, file attachments, call recordings and call logs, and WhatsApp or email conversation history all stay behind. Deals and quotations are built in ViveLead rather than imported. If any of those matter for your switch, talk to the team before you plan around it.

One more thing to plan for: the importer checks for repeated rows inside the file you upload, not against leads already in your account. Importing the same sheet twice gives you two copies of every lead.

An import also does not fire your automations, so bringing in old leads will not send anybody a welcome message years late.

If it does not work

What you see	What it means	What to do
`Please import a .csv, .xlsx or .xls file.`	The file is some other format, often a Google Sheet link or a PDF export	Open it in Excel or Sheets and save as CSV or XLSX
`Please provide data, file is empty.`	The sheet has fewer than two rows, so a header with nothing under it	Check you exported the rows, not just the header
`No lead form found. Configure form fields first to download the sample.`	Your account has no lead form yet	Set up the lead form under Settings first, then come back for the sample
Rows highlighted, summary says a value is missing	That row has no email or no phone number	Fill the gaps in the sheet, or use Skip incomplete rows and import the rest
A phone cell highlighted on its own	The number could not be read for your country	Write it in full international form, such as `+919876543210`, or add a `countryCode` column holding `+91` or `IN`
Owner cells highlighted, leads import unassigned	The name or email in that column is not an active user in your account	Fix the spelling to match the user exactly, or create the user first, then assign the leads in bulk afterwards
The same leads appear twice	The sheet was imported twice, or holds the same person twice	Delete the duplicates from the lead list, then re-import the corrected file once

Onboarding and free data migration covers what our team does for you when the export comes from Zoho, HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive.

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