{htxt id='upload'}
<h1>{ts}Import File Format{/ts}</h1>
<p>
    {ts}Files to be imported must be in the 'comma-separated-values' format (CSV). Most applications will allow you to export records in CSV format. Consult the documentation for your application if you're not sure how to do this.{/ts}
</p>
<h1>{ts}Contact Records for Members{/ts}</h1>
<p>
    {ts}Membership import requires that each person, household or organization already exists as a contact record in your CiviCRM database. If you need to import memberships for contact records which haven't been added to CiviCRM yet - you will do this in 2 steps. First, use <strong>Import Contacts</strong> to add the contact records. If possible, include a unique 'External ID' for each new contact which you can then use to match memberships to contacts. Then return to this screen and import the membership records.{/ts}
</p>
<h1>{ts}Matching Memberships to Contacts{/ts}</h1>
<p>{ts}Membership import files must contain data needed to <strong>match the membership to the contact record</strong>. This 'matching' can be handled in several different ways:{/ts}</p>
    <ul>
    <li>{ts}Include the data fields used for contact 'matching' based on your configured <strong>Strict Duplicate Matching</strong> rules. For the default duplicate matching rules, you would include a column in each row with the contributors' Email Address.{/ts}</li>
    <li>{ts}If you've stored a unique <strong>External Identifier</strong> for each contact in CiviCRM, you can include that value as a column in your import file. Memberships will then be matched to contact records using their External ID.{/ts}</li>
    <li>{ts}You can include a column with each contact's <strong>Internal Contact ID</strong>. This is the unique ID assigned by CiviCRM which is displayed at the bottom of the Contact Summary screen - and can be exported.{/ts}</li>
    </ul>
<p>
    {ts}Save the CSV file with your membership data and 'contact matching' data to your local hard drive (or an accessible drive on your network) - and you are now ready for step 1 (Upload Data).{/ts}
</p>
{/htxt}

{htxt id="id-onDuplicate"}
    <p>
    {ts}For each import, you can either INSERT new membership records, or UPDATE existing records. You can not do both types of operations in a single import session. If you are UPDATING existing
    memberships, you will need to include a column containing the unique CiviCRM-assigned membership ID to match to the existing membership records.{/ts}
    </p>
{/htxt}