Introduction

When using Artshell to organise events that require mandatory registration or that allow participation only by invitation (sent via Artshell’s Inviter feature), you will generate a valuable set of contact data.

These contacts represent a network of potential clients, collaborators, or supporters that you may want manage and preserve within the Contacts section of your Artshell account.

Once the event is over, it is often useful to transfer the data collected into your Contacts section. If the number of participants is large, this process needs to be handled carefully to avoid errors or overwriting existing cards.

For this reason, this article provides a detailed step-by-step guide on how to correctly import contact data.

Step 1: Open Reservations

Select the event for which you want to download the list of participants and invited contacts (if you used Artshell’s Inviter).
Open the Details tab at the top left of the event card.
From the dropdown menu, click Reservations.

Step 2: Export and review the Excel participants file

Click the Actions button.
Select the first option, Export attendee Excel, to automatically download the file.

Screenshot 2025-09-02 alle 10.20.53.png

Why use Export attendee Excel instead of Import attendee in contacts?
We strongly recommend exporting the participants file first in order to review the data and remove any unwanted entries before importing them into Artshell Contacts. This step helps avoid errors or incomplete fields being imported, which could otherwise occur if you use the Import attendee in Contacts option directly.

Once downloaded, open the Excel file. It is structures in: the Participants sheet and (if applicable) the Invited By sheet.

The PARTICIPANTS sheet

This sheet lists all contacts who registered for or attended your event.

Click the box to expand and read the contents:

Explanation of column headers

Column(s)	What it contains
A	Contact ID. A filled cell indicates the contact already exists in your Contacts section. A blank cell indicates the contact was not present in your address book.
B - C	First name and Last name. Entered by the contact during registration, or by you/authorised users (if using Inviter).
D	Company: Data from the contact card (blank if not in your Contacts section).
E - F	Contact Type and Tags: Taken from the contact card, if present. Otherwise, blank.
G	Email: The email used at registration or entered by yourself if you used the Inviter.
H - M	Additional details: Taken from the contact card, if present. Otherwise, blank.
N	Language: The language in which the invitation was sent.
O - P	Address. Taken from the contact card, if present. Otherwise, blank.
Q	Invitation type/activity: For example, VIP, Press, or the name of an activity such as Vernissage, Guided tour.
R - V	Event duration data: Defined by you during event configuration.
W	Participant restriction tag: the contact received a pass (e.g. VIP, VIP+). The pass name is also added as a tag (see Column AL). no: the contact registered independently and did not received a pass.
X	Restriction type. Corresponding to column W. Shows the name of the pass assigned as a tag.
Y - Z	RSVP slots. Time slots and days selected, if RSVP was required.
AA - AB	Coupons used, if applicable.
AC	Registration date. The date when the contact registered or received the invitation (if using Inviter).
AD	Guest access. yes: The contact received a pass that allowed a guest (if Enable guest was enabled during pass creation). no: The contact received a pass that did not allow a guest. Note: Guest access does not necessarily mean a guest was actually brought.
AE - AF	Guest data. If requested and collected. With Inviter, this option must be enabled during configuration. If you wish to gather additional guest data for your event, contact sales@artshell.eu.
AG - AH	Entry date and time. Empty cells indicate the pass was not scanned and access was not registered.
AI	Invited by. Name of the person, company, or organisation that issued the pass.
AJ	Pass activation. yes: if the pass was activated. no: if the pass was not activated.
AK	QR codes. Generated upon pass activation. Blank if the pass was not activated (AJ column is no).
AL	Tags. Automatically assigned based on interactions with the event: - newsletter-ok: The contact subscribed to the newsletter. - privacy-ok: The contact accepted the privacy policy (mandatory). - treatmentA-year: The contact agreed to share data with third parties.

Step 3: Import contacts

After reviewing and cleaning the Excel file, you can proceed with importing the contacts into your Artshell account.

Note: You may split the import into several phases (e.g. dividing the Excel file into smaller parts).

To proceed with the import follow these steps:

Open Settings  .
Click Import.
Select Contacts and download the Excel import template:

Excel import template: Artshell_contact_import_example.
Copy the data from the Participants file into the template, up to column Q (Country), ensuring the column names match (e.g. First name, Last name).
Click Browse to upload the file, then click Import.

Step 4: Import invitations (Inviter only)

If you used Artshell’s Inviter feature, you can also import the history of invitations sent by you or authorised external users.

The exported participants file includes a second sheet called INVITED BY, containing:

Data of invited contacts.
The person or organisation who sent the invitation.
Pass type and year.
Whether the inviter was the main inviter (the first to invite the contact).
Whether the pass was activated.

The INVITED BY sheet

Click the box to expand and read the contents:

Explanation of column headers

Column(s)	What it contains
A - E	Contact details of the invited person. If a contact was invited multiple times, they will appear on multiple rows.
F	Invited by. Name or company of the inviter.
G - H	Pass type and year.
I	Main inviter. yes: The person/company in column F was the first to invite the contact. no: They were not the first inviter.
J	Invitation activated. Indicates whether the pass was activated by the contact.

How to import invitations:

Make sure you have already imported the Participants sheet.
Clean the Invited by file by removing contacts not included in Participants.
Download the Excel invitation import template. You can also find it here below:

Excel import invitation template: Artshell_invitation_import_example.
Copy and paste the data from the Invited by sheet into the template then Upload and import the file.

Note: If columns B, C, D (name, email, company) already exist in the contact card, they will not be overwritten. Tags, however, will be added (not replaced).

FAQs and special cases

I see contacts in Invited by but not in Participants

This happens if you manually removed some contacts from Participants but not from Invited by.

A contact has multiple email addresses (e.g. personal and work)

All invitations are linked to the same contact card.

The same email address appears in two different contact records

The invitation will appear in both contact cards.

Attention! For accurate database management, each email address should only be linked to one contact card.