My spreadsheet has one row per company, but several contact names, phone numbers, and email addresses are packed into individual cells. Before importing it into Busabase, should I turn each contact into a separate record linked to the company? How should I handle someone who represents more than one company without creating duplicate contact records?
Yes, split the packed cells before importing. Use a Companies Base with one record per company and a People Base with one record per person. If a person can represent several companies, add an Affiliations Base linking one person to one company per row, with role, work email/phone for that relationship, effective dates, and a primary-contact flag. This avoids duplicating the person while preserving company-specific context. If those relationship details do not matter, a multi-company relation on People may be sufficient, but it is harder to represent a different title or contact channel for each company.
Ask your agent to transform a small copy of the spreadsheet into three reviewable lists before any bulk write: normalized companies, distinct people, and person-company affiliations. Preserve the original row ID and source cell alongside each proposed record so you can trace mistakes. Agree on deduplication rules first: email may be shared or change, names can collide, and a common phone number does not prove two rows are the same person. Review ambiguous matches rather than silently merging them.
A useful starting request is: “In Busabase, model Companies, People and Affiliations from ten redacted source rows. List every split and ambiguous duplicate, then show the links you would create. Wait for my approval before importing the full file.” Do you need to track a person's changing role over time, or only their current contacts?
Sign in to join the discussion. Reading is always open; you only need an account to post.
Sign in