Studio imports work best in a specific order because some imports depend on data from the imports that come before them. Always import the “containers” first: the people / contacts / clients those records will attach to.
Recommended Order
- Companies: employers, partners and sponsors. Do this before People. The People import links each person to a company you already have and never invents one, so a Company column on a people file only connects if the company is in Studio first.
- People (or Donors for churches / nonprofits): names, emails, phones, addresses, household info. Every later import will match against these.
- Clients (agencies) and Vendors: the organizations you bill and the ones who bill you. Projects and invoices both match against these by name, so bring them in before either.
- Donations / Giving (churches / nonprofits): past gifts. Studio matches each gift to a Person by External ID, then email, then name, so importing People first dramatically improves match quality.
- Recurring gifts (churches / nonprofits): active giving schedules from your old platform. Same donor matching as Giving, so it wants People first too.
- Invoices: bills you have already raised. Each one attaches to a client or a vendor, so those come first.
- Events: past or upcoming events. Independent of People, so it can run any time.
- Groups: small groups, classes, ministries. Group leaders and members are matched against People, so import People first.
- Check-in history: past attendance. Attaches to People and to an event, so both of those come first.
- Notes / Interactions: dated notes on a person's timeline. Notes that match nobody are skipped, so People goes first.
- Projects / Tasks (agencies): project history. Matches assignees against team members and clients against the clients table.
You will not use every step. Run the ones that match the files you have, in this order.
Why People First
When you skip the People import and run Giving (or any other person-linked import) first, Studio creates new Person records for every record on the fly. That works, but the records are minimal: just a name and email pulled from the import row, with no address, phone, household info, or other context.
If you import People first, Studio uses your full directory and attaches each later record to the right person, with all their info already in place.
Donors vs People (Churches / Nonprofits)
The Donors and People imports use the same fields and produce the same Person records. The only difference: Donors import auto-creates a donor profile (a flag that this person has given), even before any gifts are imported. Pick whichever label matches what your CSV represents.
Skipping Steps
You don't have to import every module. If you only have giving data and no separate directory, just run the giving import. Studio creates People as it goes. You can always run a People import later to enrich those records. Same logic applies to projects without a clients import. Studio creates clients as needed.