Introduction

With Artshell, you can export your contacts in Excel format to manage and analyze them more effectively.

The exporting option includes toggle switches (), which you can turn on or off to include or exclude specific features and details.

Watch the short explainer video below:

Select the contacts for export

The export operation starts by selecting the contacts.

Expand the box below to review how to use the 'Select' function:

Once you’ve selected your contacts, the Manage panel will automatically appear on the right.

If the panel does not appear (e.g., due to a small screen size), click the circled three-dot icon at the top right:

Then click Excel and set the export options:

• name of the document
• language
• the information to include by toggling the switches ()

Each switch corresponds to a sheet in the Excel file. By enabling the toggles, you can include the following data:

• Details: contains all contact card data, excluding information already present in other sheets (e.g., here you’ll find Contact Type, Position, etc.)
• Addresses
• Emails
• Phones
• Links
• Invited by: this sheet is only available if you’ve used Inviter, an additional Artshell feature, before creating your events.

If you want to review the selected items or change the selection, click Items in the left-hand navigation menu, then select Manage selection to add or remove contacts.

Finally, click the Generate Excel button to download the file.

The generated file has the following structure:

Consolid your data into a single sheet

When exporting contacts from Artshell, the data is organized across multiple sheets within the Excel file, each dedicated to a specific type of information (such as personal details, addresses, emails, phone numbers, links, etc.).

Keep in mind that only the sheets corresponding to the data types you selected during the export process will be included. For example, if you choose to export only Details and Phones, the file will contain only those two sheets.

To obtain a unified view of all this data, you’ll need to create a summary sheet — which we’ll call “Merge” — in which the main information is consolidated using a combination of manual steps and automated formulas

Data structure

In the exported Excel file, you’ll find one or more sheets depending on the export options selected. Each sheet contains a specific type of information:

• Details: first name, last name, company, role information, notes, date of birth.
• Addresses: physical addresses.
• Emails: email addresses.
• Phones: phone numbers.
• Links: URLs.

All sheets contain a common column named Artshell ID, which serves as the unique identifier for each contact. This ID will be your reference point for merging the data.

Additionally, each sheet includes — in the last two columns — the creation date and last update date of the data, allowing you to track changes over time.

Preliminary note: handling duplicate data

Some contacts may have multiple rows in sheets like Emails, Addresses, or Phones (e.g., if a contact has two email addresses). In these cases, merge formulas would return an Error value.

For this reason, it’s essential to manually manage duplicates before using formulas.

Step 1: Identify and isolate contacts with duplicate Artshell IDs

1. In the first sheet, select the column containing the Artshell IDs.
2. Go to Home -> Conditional Formatting -> Highlight Cells Rules -> Duplicate Values. (See the Microsoft article for more information.)

3. Confirm the formatting rule by clicking OK. You can use the default red fill if you like.

   

4. Repeat the same operation for each sheet (Emails, Addresses, Phones, Links).

In our case, the Details sheet does not contain duplicates, while in the other sheets some contacts appear on multiple rows, as the same Artshell ID is associated with multiple pieces of data (for example, two email addresses or multiple phone numbers).

For each contact that appears on multiple rows (i.e. with a duplicated Artshell ID), choose a single row to keep — for example, the one containing the most relevant or up-to-date information. Duplicate rows that you do not wish to include immediately can be moved to a separate sheet — for example called “Duplicates” — so that you can manage or review them at a later stage.

Once this clean-up is complete, we recommend deleting any empty rows left in the original sheets, to avoid errors or confusion during the data merging process.

Step 2: Create the “Merge” sheet

After reviewing and cleaning up duplicates, you can proceed with creating the summary sheet where all primary contact information will be consolidated.

1. Click the “+” symbol in the sheet bar to create a new sheet.
2. Name the sheet, for example “Merge” (or any other name you prefer).
3. In column A, paste the full list of Artshell IDs from the sheets you exported (e.g., Details, Addresses, Emails, Phones, Links).
4. After pasting the IDs, select the entire column A. Make sure each ID appears only once, so that each row represents a single contact.
5. Use the command Data → Remove Duplicates to automatically eliminate repeated IDs. (See the Microsoft article for more information.)
6. Finally, in row 1 of the sheet, enter the column headers you wish to use to organise the data to be retrieved (e.g. First name, Last name, Email, Country, etc.). This will help you build a clear and well-structured Merge sheet.

This way, you obtain a clean and unique list of Artshell IDs, which will serve as the starting point for building the data summary using the formulas described in the next step.

Step 3: Merge data using the VLOOKUP formula

Once the list of Artshell IDs has been added to the Merge sheet, you can begin retrieving information from the source sheets (Details, Addresses, Emails, etc.) using the VLOOKUP formula (called CERCA.VERT in Italian).

This formula allows you to search for a value (in this case, the contact ID) within a range and return the content of a specific column in the same row.

Formula structure (EXAMPLE)

=IFERROR(VLOOKUP($A2,Sheet!Range,Column,FALSE), 0)

Explanation of components

To apply the formula select the cell where you want to insert the formula. Type it directly into the cell or into the formula bar next to the fx indicator.

After entering the formula in B2, drag the green square downwards to copy it across all rows in the sheet. Excel will automatically copy the formula for each row, adjusting the referenced cell accordingly (e.g. A3, A4, A5…).

Formula examples

Retrieve the First Name from the Details sheet

To retrieve the First name, use the following formula:

=IFERROR(VLOOKUP($A2,Details!A2:M31,2,FALSE),0)

Retrieve the Last Name from the Details sheet

To retrieve the Last name, the formula is the same, but the column number must be changed, as last names are located in column 3.

To retrieve information from other sheets, such as Addresses or Emails, use the following formulas:

Retrieve the Country from the Addresses sheet

Per recuperare il campo Nazione, usa la seguente formula:

=IFERROR(VLOOKUP($A2,Emails!A2:M31,6,FALSE), 0)

In this case, the sheet name must be changed to Addresses, and the column number must be adjusted accordingly, as the Country field is located in column 7 in the Addresses sheet.

The result will look like this:

Retrieve the Email from the Emails sheet

Per inserire il campo Email è necessario inserire la formula:

=IFERROR(VLOOKUP($A2,Emails!A2:M31,6,FALSE),0)

Conclusions

Exporting contacts from Artshell in Excel format is a powerful and flexible way to analyze your data in detail. The separation into themed sheets allows you to explore each category of information in an organized way.

However, for reading, printing, or integration with other systems, it may be useful to consolidate all information into a single worksheet.

By following the steps described in this guide — from selecting contacts to merging the data using VLOOKUP — you can build a clear and complete summary sheet, fully customized to your operational needs..