Importing Contacts To Your iPad & Populating Your Welcm Staff List

Overview

Before we go into details on each of the steps let’s first look at what the steps are to get your staff list from an existing system into Welcm:

1. Export your contacts (i.e. staff list) from an existing system (e.g. email, HR system, user directory)
2. Import your contacts into iCloud
3. Import iCloud Contacts onto your iPad
4. Import your iPad Contacts into your Welcm staff list

If you are not sure how to do any or all of the steps above please keep reading! If you would like some additional assistance with any or all of the steps outlined in this tutorial please contact us.

It is worth noting that step 2 requires your contacts’ details to be in the form of a vCard (ideally a multi-contact vCard so you can import all your contacts at once). This is because iCloud will only import contacts in that format.

Unfortunately some systems will not export in vCard format. These systems include Outlook and Office 365. If you use one of these systems it is not a problem, it just means the process has a few more steps.

There are pieces of software available that will convert files such as CSV’s (a file type in which virtually all systems will export data) however we will look at how to convert a CSV to vCard without the need for specialist software.

1. Export your contacts from…

Gmail

1. Go to your Gmail contacts list

• Login to your Gmail account
• Click Gmail in top left of Gmail window
• Select Contacts from the dropdown list

1. Select the contacts you wish to export
2. Click the More dropdown above the list of contacts
3. Select Export from the dropdown list
4. In the popup window that will appear select vCard format
5. Click Export
6. Save the file (this will download the file to your Downloads folder)

Outlook

1. Click File tab
2. Click Open & Export
3. Click Import / Export
4. Select Export to a file from the popup
5. Select Comma Separated Values then click Next
6. Select Contacts from the list of files then click Next
7. Select your chosen location to save the file (e.g. your desktop) then click Next
8. Click Finish
9. Open Gmail
10. Go to your Gmail contacts list 

• Click Gmail in top left of Gmail window
• Select Contacts from the dropdown list

1. Click the More dropdown above the list of contacts
2. Select Import from the dropdown list
3. Click Browse and select the file you just saved
4. Click Import and your Outlook contacts will now appear in Gmail
5. Follow our instructions for exporting contacts through Gmail

iCloud

1. Go to you iCloud Contacts list

• Login to your iCloud account
• Click Contacts

1. Select the contacts you wish to export
2. Click the gear icon (a.k.a. the Actions Menu) in the bottom left of your Contacts window
3. Click Export vCard
4. Save the file (this will download the file to your Downloads folder)

Office 365

1. Login to your Office 365 admin account
2. Click Admin at the top of the page
3. Click Exchange from the dropdown list
4. Ensure Recipients is selected on the lefthand menu
5. Click the three dots above the contacts list
6. Select Export data to a csv file from the dropdown list
7. In the popup window put a checkmark next to these column names: 

• Email Address
• First Name
• Last Name
• Phone

1. Click Export (this will save a file named ExportData.csv to your computer)
2. Open Gmail
3. Go to your Gmail contacts list 

• Click Gmail in top left of Gmail window
• Select Contacts from the dropdown list

1. Click the More dropdown above the list of contacts
2. Select Import from the dropdown list
3. Click Browse and select the file (ExportData.csv) you just saved
4. Click Import and your Office 365 contacts will now appear in Gmail
5. Follow our instructions for exporting contacts through Gmail

Your User Directory / HR System / Payroll System

Option 1 (if available on your system this is the simplest way to do it):

1. Export staff details (first name, last name, email, phone) as a multi-contact vCard 
2. Save the file

Option 2 (if available on your system):

1. Export staff details (first name, last name, email, phone) in vCard format
2. Save the files to a dedicated folder
3. Merge the vCards into a single multi-contact vCard and save 

• This can be done using a dedicated piece of software or…
• Use the Windows command line interface 
• open the command line interface (click Start > Run, or Windows button + r and type cmd to launch it)
• go to the folder in which you saved the vCard files by typing cd “vCards”, if you called the folder vCards
• Enter the command copy /a *.vcf combinedfile.vcf
• You will now see a new file called combinedfile.vcf in the folder with the other vCards

Option 3 (if you have no way of exporting vCards from your system)

1. Export a CSV file ensuring you have the following columns: 

• First Name
• Last Name
• Email Address
• Phone Number

1. Open Gmail
2. Go to your Gmail contacts list 

• Click Gmail in top left of Gmail window
• Select Contacts from the dropdown list

1. Click the More dropdown above the list of contacts
2. Select Import from the dropdown list
3. Click Browse and select the file (ExportData.csv) you just saved
4. Click Import and your contacts will now appear in Gmail
5. Follow our instructions for exporting contacts through Gmail

2. Import your contacts into iCloud 

1. Go to you iCloud Contacts list

• Login to the iCloud account you intend to use for Welcm
• Click Contacts

1. Click the gear icon (a.k.a. the Actions Menu) in the bottom left of your Contacts window
2. Click Import vCard
3. Select the vCard you created then click Choose (this will import and populate your contact list)

3. Import iCloud contacts onto your iPad

1. On your computer, login to iTunes using the iCloud account you intend to use for Welcm
2. Connect your iPad to your computer
3. Click the iPad icon in the top left of the iTunes window
4. Click Info from the lefthand menu
5. Put a checkmark next to Sync Contacts then click Done
6. Click Apply in the popup (this will populate your iPad’s contact list)

4. Import your iPad contacts into your Welcm staff list

1. Open Welcm
2. Navigate to Staff List

• Tap the logo in the top right of the home screen 5 times
• Enter your passcode
• Tap Staff List in the bottom left of the screen

1. Tap Update Staff List in the top right of the screen
2. Tap Ok on the popup