Background
As you transition to Tern from other systems, you may want to keep track of what historical trips your clients have taken with you in the past. This article walks through how to import those trips and match them to an existing contact in Tern.
Important notes before diving in -
Importing trips will just create a "shell" record of the trip, so you can reference it on the contact profile. If the trip is in the future, we recommend building it out in Tern so that you can continue to manage it.
Trip data will not automatically feed into Tern sales and commission reporting. It is only used as a reference point for you when looking at client data. Those sales reports are powered by "Bookings".
To learn more about bookings as an advisor, click here.
To learn more about how to import historical bookings as an agency owner, click here.
Getting your data ready for import
Examples & templates
Download a template of the data we support uploading - Import Trips to Contacts - Templates - Template (1).csv
See an example of the template filled out - Import Trips to Contacts - Templates - Example (1).csv
How trips are "matched" to contacts
Trips can only be added to contacts that already exist in Tern. If you haven't imported your contacts yet, do that first.
We match each trip row to a contact in this order, stopping at the first match:
Import ID — if your trip file includes an Import ID, we look for a contact that was originally imported with that same Import ID. Important: a contact only has an Import ID if it was created through a contact import that included an Import ID column. Contacts you added manually, or imported without an Import ID, do not have one — so Import ID matching won't find them.
Email + name — if there's no Import ID match, we require an exact match on all three of: email address, last name, and either the legal first name or preferred first name. Capitalization doesn't matter. A partial match (for example, email only, or email + last name) will not attach the trip.
If no match is found, the trip row is skipped and no contact is created.
Specific field descriptions
Required fields are marked with a **, fields that are conditionally required are marked with a *.
Import ID: this is the import ID of the CONTACT you are trying to upload this trip to
If you have a record stored of your contact import, make sure you use the same import ID.
Note: Tern does not display a contact's Import ID on the contact profile. If you're not sure what Import ID a contact has, check the file you used for your original contact import. If your contacts were never imported with an Import ID, match your trips using email + last name + first name instead.
*Legal first name: the last name of the contact you are trying to upload the trip to.
If you don't include a contact import ID, you'll need to add either a legal first name, OR a preferred first name.
*Last name: the last name of the contact you are trying to upload the trip to.
Required if you don't include a contact import ID.
*Preferred first name: the preferred first name of the contact you are trying to upload the trip to.
If you don't include a contact import ID, you'll need to add either a legal first name, OR a preferred first name.
*Primary email address: the email of the contact you're trying to upload the trip to.
Required if you don't include a contact import ID.
**Trip import ID: this can be any unique identifier for the trip. This helps you re-import data to overwrite it.
If you don't have an ID for your trips, you can use something like today's date + 1, 2, 3, 4. Example: Trip ID 1 - 107241, Trip ID 2 - 107242, and so on.
**Trip name: the name of the trip. Can be anything you want.
Trip start date: the start date of the trip
Trip end date: the start date of the trip
Trip total cost: the cost of the trip. Just used as a reference on the contact profile, not in sales reporting.
Trip commission: commission earned for the entire trip. Just used as a reference on the contact profile, not in commission reporting.
Trip currency: the currency for the trip cost / commission. If you leave this blank, we'll just use your account default.
Trip supplier: if there was a "main" supplier you'd like to reference for this trip, you can add it. Otherwise you can leave it blank.
Trip owner name: if you are an agency owner and you're importing trips across your agency, and you'd like to reference who planned which trip, you can optionally add the agent name. If you aren't, you can add your own name, or just leave this blank.
Trip owner email: same thing for trip owner email! Optionally reference the agent who owns this booking, add your own email, or leave blank.
Import your trips
First, go to Contacts, and click 'Import Contacts'
Next, click 'import past trips' under step 2, and follow the instructions of the import process.
Review & manage imported trips
After trips are successfully imported to your contacts, you'll find them on the "trips" tab of each matched contact.
Editing your trip data
If you need to edit the imported data across all the contacts/trips you just uploaded, you can make the changes by editing the data in your file, and re-uploading it again. Just make sure you don't change the trip ID for each trip.
If you'd like to edit the data for a specific trip, simply click on that row.
If a trip didn't appear
If the import finishes but a trip isn't on the contact's Trips tab, the row was most likely skipped because we couldn't match it to an existing contact. Review your import results for skipped rows — each skipped row is labeled "Contact not found." Then confirm that the contact already exists in Tern and that either the Import ID matches the one used to import that contact, or the email + last name + first name match exactly.
