Carrying marketing consent across in an import

Your marketing audience took years to build. When you import patients from your old system, their marketing consent can come with them, so switching platforms does not silently reset everyone to unsubscribed.

Include the consent columns

When exporting from your old system, include its marketing opt-in columns. On the import mapping screen, match them to Email marketing consent and SMS marketing consent. The auto-matching recognises the common header spellings (for example "email marketing", "email consent", "SMS opt-in", "subscribed"), and it deliberately never confuses a consent column with the plain email or phone contact columns.

How values are read

As the mapping screen explains: values like yes, true, 1 or opted in count as consent; anything else imports as not opted in. The full set of recognised positives covers yes, y, true, 1, opted in, opt-in, optin, subscribed and on.

Cautious by design

Anything ambiguous or blank imports as not opted in. An unclear value can never opt a patient in by accident, which is exactly the direction UK GDPR expects you to err in. If you do not map the consent columns at all, everyone imports as not opted in, and you would need to gather consent afresh, so it is well worth including them.

Check before you send

After the import, spot-check a few known subscribers on their patient records before running any marketing, and only ever message the patients who came across as opted in.