Format phone numbers for bulk import

Genesys Cloud follows the E.164 specification for phone numbers used within the system. When you bulk import external contacts and external organizations through a .csv file, the input phone numbers in your .csv file must follow the E.164 standard. This article describes how to format the phone numbers before you import them into Genesys Cloud.

Acceptable phone number formats

The bulk import feature and enrich APIs recognizes the following phone number formats and processes them internally to suit the identity resolution algorithm for contact matching:

• +441213315xxx
• +1 232xxx4316
• +29234xxx32432
• +1 xxx 555 5554
• +591 743392xxx3
• +1 321 yyy 9872 x 123
• (+44)121.xxx.5251
• +1 415-xxx-2629

Acceptable country code formats

The bulk import feature and enrich APIs recognizes and processes the following country code formats supplied in the Phone Number column in the .csv template:

Phone number that starts with a + sign

• US: +1
• GB: +44
• HU: +36

Phone number that starts with 00

• US: 001
• GB: 0044
• HU: 0036

Other phone number formats

• To use this format, you must provide the country code in the Country Code column (for example, US, GB) in the .csv template:
  • US: 1
  • GB: 44
  • HU: 36
• Any other country-specific format, you must provide the country code in the Country Code column (for example, US, GB) in the .csv template: 

  • HU: 06

Non-E.164 format examples

Generally, the bulk import feature does not process non-compliant E.164 phone numbers and displays appropriate warnings and error messages.

Non-E.164 formats may have: 

• Less than the expected digits
• More than the expected digits
• Non-numeric characters

Errors and warnings

These example scenarios describe phone number-related errors and warning messages. 

Example scenario 1

In this scenario, the phone number follows E.164 formatting but does not match the North American format. The bulk import feature applies the North American formatting by inserting required dashes.

Example scenario 2

In this scenario, the phone number follows E.164 formatting but does not match the UK format. The bulk import feature adjusts formatting by removing dashes, and adding required spaces.

Example scenario 3

In this scenario, the phone number is not E.164 compliant due to extra digits or characters in the input, and no normalization country code is specified. If you proceed with the import, the bulk import feature stores the number as-is in the system and a warning message appears at the end of the import process.

• The phone number (+44)121 231 54023 has extra digits in the input. 
• The phone numbers (44)1213315082 and (44) 121.331.5290, have an invalid country code specified in brackets (44). For more information, see the Valid country code format section.

Example scenario 4

In this scenario, the phone number is not E.164 compliant due to a missing country code in the input or normalization field. If you proceed with the import, the bulk import feature adds the US country code by default.

Example scenario 5

In this scenario, the phone number is in E.164 format and the input phone number does not have a country code, however, the import file has the normalization country code in the normalization field. No warnings are generated, and the bulk import feature applies additional regional formatting as needed.

Example scenario 6

In this scenario, the phone number is in E.164 format and the normalization country code is correctly specified in both the input number and the normalization field. No warnings are generated, and the bulk import feature applies additional regional formatting as needed.

Example scenario 7

In this scenario, the phone number is in E.164 format, but the input number and the normalization field have two different normalization country codes. A warning message indicates that the bulk import feature uses only the country code from the input phone number and ignores the normalization field value.