📥Importing contacts

Learn how to prepare and upload your contact file, understand phone number formatting requirements, map file columns to template variables, and troubleshoot common import errors.

Contacts are loaded into a campaign by uploading a CSV or XLSX file. Each row in the file becomes one campaign target — one contact who will receive the template message.

---

Supported file types

Format	Extension	Max size
Comma-separated values	.csv	5 MB
Excel workbook	.xlsx	5 MB

---

Required and optional columns

Column	Required	Description
phone_number	✅ Yes	The recipient's WhatsApp number.
name	Recommended	Used to personalize messages and shown in the Conversations tab.
Any other column	Optional	Additional data you want to map to template or conversation variables.

💡 Tip: Click Download template on the upload step to get a CSV file with the correct headers pre-filled.

---

Phone number format

Phone numbers must be in E.164 format: a + sign followed by the country code and the full number, with no spaces, dashes, or parentheses.

✅ Valid	❌ Invalid
[phone]	3001234567
[phone]	[phone]
[phone]	07911 123456

Rows with invalid or unrecognizable phone numbers are rejected at import time and counted as rows_invalid in the import summary. They will not receive messages.

---

What happens during import

When you upload a file, Dapta processes it row by row:

1. Validates each phone number against E.164 rules using the campaign's time zone as a country hint.

2. Deduplicates — if a phone number already exists in this campaign, the row is silently skipped (counted as rows_duplicate).

3. Inserts valid, new contacts as pending targets (counted as rows_inserted).

4. Rejects invalid rows with a structured error code (counted as rows_invalid).

After processing, an import summary is shown:

Field	Description
Rows received	Total rows in the file.
Rows inserted	New contacts added to the campaign.
Rows duplicate	Phone numbers already in this campaign — skipped.
Rows invalid	Rows rejected due to phone validation errors.

---

Adding contacts after campaign creation

You can upload additional contacts to a campaign that is already running or scheduled. Navigate to the campaign detail page, go to Settings, and use the upload area to add a new file. New contacts are appended; existing phone numbers are skipped automatically.

---

Troubleshooting

Problem	Solution
All rows are rows_invalid	Check that the phone_number column exists and values use E.164 format with a + prefix.
Some rows are rows_duplicate	Those phone numbers were already imported in a previous upload. This is expected — no action needed.
Template dropdown is empty	The selected channel has no approved WhatsApp templates. Approve a template in Meta Business Manager first.
Import summary shows 0 rows inserted	The file may be empty, have only headers, or all rows may be duplicates or invalid.
File upload fails	Confirm the file is .csv or .xlsx and is under 5 MB.