How To: Import and Export Contact Cards

Contact Cards Recap

Each participant card in Ripple has a section to manage relevant contact information, both for the participant and for others relevant to them. This can include parents, siblings, partners, and others. Each contact card can contain multiple contact methods. Each contact card tracks the following:

• Name
• Relationship or Title (if contact is not the participant)
• Phone number(s)
• Email address(es)
• Street address(es)

In addition, users can:

• Mark if a voicemail message can be left to this individual
• Designate the preferred person to contact for the participant
• Archive the contact or some of their information
• Delete the contact or some of their information

More information on Contact Cards can be found Here.

Importing Contact Cards

To import a participant’s contact card, navigate to the Site Admin tab (green), then go to the Import section in the left sidebar (red).

When importing:

1. Choose what kind of data you will need

2. Download the Template and Data Dictionary (purple)

3. Fill in the Template with your participant's information

4. Tell Ripple what kind of data you are importing

5. Tell Ripple what should be done with existing participants

6. Choose your file

7. Import the data

Filling in the Template

Once you download the Template, you will need to fill it in with the participant’s information. Each participant should have their own row. You can fill in the following information for each contact: 

• Contact Name: The name of the person you are importing contact information for (If it is the participant, leave blank)
• Contact Title: The relationship of that contact person to your participant (If it is the participant, leave blank)
• Message: Indication of whether a person can receive messages
• Preferred: Indication of whether this is the preferred person to contact
• Contact Type: Indication of whether the contact information is an email or phone address
• Contact Information: Phone number or email address of the contact

Contact.1 refers to the first person you are inputting contact information for. This can be the participant, but does not have to be. Contact.2, contact.3, and contact.4 refer to the second, third, and fourth people you can contact for your participant. You can input up to 4 contact people per participant’s card. This could include family members, emergency contacts, doctors, etc. 

Infos.1 refers to the first contact method for that contact person. Infos.2, infos.3, infos.4, and infos.5 refer to additional contact methods for that same person. You can input up to 5 contact methods per contact card.

Once completed, input your file into the Import tool and import your contact cards:

How to Avoid Duplicating Contact Cards

If your participant is going to be the first contact method, you will want to leave the Template columns of contact.1.contactName and contact.1.contactTitle blank (red). Ripple will pull in the participant’s name and Title as the Participant into the card.

Adding to existing Contacts with the Import tool

The import tool can be used to add new contact methods to an existing contact within a participant’s contact section. If there is an existing contact person that matches the contact that is being imported, the new contact method will be added as an additional phone number, email, or address to the existing contact person’s contact card.

Adding a New Contact Method for a Participant

To import new contact methods to existing contacts, the new contact method needs to match the existing contact card in these fields:

• Participant's Global ID or Participant's First Name, Last Name, and Date of Birth
• Contact Person's Name (leave blank if it is the participant)
• Contact Person's Title (leave blank if it is the participant)

If these fields match an existing contact card, the new contact method or address will be added to that contact card. If you're uploading the data into the participant's alternate contacts, make sure that the name and title match what's already in Ripple. This will prevent the duplicating of contact cards.

Remember: if you are importing the data into the participant's contact card, make sure to leave the Contact Name and Contact Title blank.

Exporting Contact Cards

To export a participant’s contact card, navigate to the Site Admin tab (green), then go to the Export section in the left sidebar (red). Select the study that you wish to export data from (purple).

To export all contact cards for all of the participants in this study, select the Participant Contacts check box. This will export all participant contact cards for this study.