CRM Data
Controlling who can import
The organisation settings that decide what tribe users may load into the CRM, and how to open it up safely.
Last updated September 2, 2026
Importing is powerful and easy to get wrong, so head office decides how much of it tribes are allowed to do. The controls live in CRM Settings.
The choice you are making
| Closed | Open |
|---|---|
| Head office loads every list. Consistent, and a bottleneck. | Tribes load their own. Fast, and only as clean as their spreadsheets. |
Most networks end up somewhere in between: tribes import their own event lists, head office handles anything that came from another system.
Opening it up safely
- Agree the settings first — stages, lead sources, custom fields. An import into a half-built configuration creates categories nobody wanted.
- Publish a template spreadsheet with the column names you expect.
- Ask for a twenty-row test import before any full file.
- Check the duplicate tools a week later to see what got through.
MIND WHERE THE LIST CAME FROM
A bought list, a scraped list or a competitor's customer list can create real legal problems in most countries, and the CRM cannot tell one from another. Whoever opens importing up should also say what is allowed to be imported.