Mapping CSV Airtable (or Notion) without tears (template inside)

#data #csv #airtable #notion

Imports break for tiny reasons: wrong casing, duplicate emails, states spelled out, phones formatted weirdly.

Here’s a lightweight recipe + templates that make CSV → Airtable/Notion painless.

1) Define the mapping

Use a 5-column mapping template:

source_field	destination_field	type_hint	required	notes
first_name	First Name	text	no	PROPER case
last_name	Last Name	text	no
email	Email	email	yes	unique key
phone	Phone	phone	no	normalize E.164
state	State	select	no	USPS 2-letter
tags	Tags	multi-select	no	split on , or ;

2) Normalize before import

Rules that catch 80% of pain:

email → LOWER
phone → E.164 (+15551234567), infer country if needed
state → USPS (Illinois → IL)
first/last → PROPER
tags → split on [,;] then trim

3) Deduplicate

Start with email (lowercased) as the primary key.

If missing, use first_name + last_name + company exact match and keep the row with the latest updated_at (or most complete).

Save the losers to duplicates.csv with a winner_id column for traceability.

4) Test import (50–100 rows)

Airtable: create select options first, then import → map fields → verify counts
Notion: set property types first (select/multi-select/email/phone), then import