Custom downloads and export templates for skip trace results

Every tool downstream wants the file its own way. The dialer wants the number in a specific column. The mail house wants the owner name kept separate from the property address. The CRM importer throws the whole file back if there is one header it does not recognize. So the results land, and somebody spends twenty minutes in a spreadsheet deleting columns and dragging them around before anything can be imported. Do that on every job and it turns into real time.

Bulk Skip Trace lets you decide which skip tracing results CSV columns come out of a job, what order they sit in, and whether the file is a CSV or an XLSX. Set it once, save it as a template, and every job after that downloads already shaped for whatever you are feeding.

Customize a download: pick your skip tracing results CSV columns

Open your bulk history and find a finished job. Next to it is Customize download. That opens the picker.

The columns are listed in groups. Every result column for the search type you ran sits in its own group, and everything that came out of your original file sits in a group called "Your uploaded data". From there:

• Check or uncheck a column to include it or drop it, or take a whole group at once instead of clicking twenty boxes.
• Drag a column to move it. The order in the picker is the order in the file, left to right.
• Watch the live count of selected groups. It updates as you check and uncheck, so you can see what you have picked before you export. Useful when the tool on the other end has a column limit.
• Choose CSV or XLSX. CSV for imports and dialers. XLSX when a person is going to open it and you want the formatting to survive.

The Customize download picker with column groups, checkboxes and a live column count

Nothing here changes the job or costs anything. The results are already yours. You are only choosing how they come out of the box, and you can download the same job again with a different arrangement whenever you want.

Save it as a template

Once the layout looks right, save it as a template and give it a name. Something you will recognize later, like "Dialer import" or "Mail house, property".

Named templates show up in two places:

1. On any finished job. Pick a template in Customize download and the columns and file type snap to it.
2. At job time. When you set a job up you can choose the template it should use, so the file is ready the moment the job finishes.

Mark one template as the default and every finished job downloads that way unless you say otherwise. Templates you stop using can be deleted.

The saved template list in Customize download with one template marked as the default

Your uploaded columns stay with the row

This is the part people ask about first. Nothing you upload gets thrown away.

Any column in your file that is not a result column is grouped under "Your uploaded data" and it is checked by default. Your lead ID, your list name, your campaign tag, the note your acquisitions person left on the row: all of it comes back on the same row as the match. That is what makes the results file joinable to whatever you already have.

Two habits worth picking up:

• Keep a copy of the column you mapped. Map one copy of the phone or address column and keep the original alongside it, so you always have the exact string you uploaded to join on.
• Give every row an ID before you upload. A plain row number in a column called lead_id is enough. It rides along in the download and turns a fuzzy name match back into an exact join.

Every bulk file starts with a Search Status column

The first column of every bulk results file is Search Status. It tells you what happened to each row:

If most of a file comes back Skipped, the column mapping is usually the cause: a notes column mapped to Address 1, or a company column mapped to State. When no row in a file could be searched, the job-complete email says the file needs attention and shows how many rows were skipped, instead of quietly reporting zero hits.

Smart column mapping when you upload

The download side is only half of it. The upload side has to read your headers first, and it tries to do that for you.

When you upload a file, the mapper reads your header row and suggests a mapping. Headers like Owner First, first_name, FIRSTNAME and Owner 1 First Name all point at the same field, so most files come in mostly mapped and you confirm the rest. Once you confirm a mapping for a layout, uploading that same layout again pre-fills it. If your county export or your list vendor always sends the same headers, the second file maps itself.

Before that, step 0 of the wizard asks which search type you are running and prints a "Your file needs: ..." line for that type. Here is what each one wants:

Extra columns beyond those are fine. They are not used for the trace, and they come back in the download.

Two checks catch a bad mapping before you spend anything. First, the mapper looks at the values in each mapped column. If most of them do not look like the field, such as free-text notes mapped to Address 1 or company names mapped to State, it stops you with a plain message that names the column and shows an example value. Second, the last step before you submit tells you how many rows actually have the fields the search needs, with a line such as "7 of 42 rows have the fields this search needs; the other 35 will be skipped and not billed." If that number looks wrong, the search type or the mapping probably is. The credit estimate still reserves every row, and the credits for skipped rows come back when the job finishes.

Column mapping with suggestions filled in from the header row

Notification preferences

Big jobs do not need watching. In notification preferences you can turn the job-complete email on or off, and add CC addresses so the person who actually runs the dialer gets the email too, not only the person who paid for the credits.

Suggested templates

Three column sets that cover most of what people do with results. Build them once and set the one you run most often as your default.

Dialer, from a phone job. Six columns in this order: lead_id from your uploaded data, Phone Owner1, Phone Type, Phone Carrier, Phone Last Seen, Phone Owner Address. Phone Type tells a caller what can take a text and Phone Last Seen tells them how stale the association is, so keep those two up front. There is more on this search type in the bulk phone append guide.

Direct mail, from a property job. Your uploaded data first, then Property Owner1, Property Owner2, Owner Occupied, Property Address, Parcel APN. Owner Occupied is the column that decides whether the letter goes to the property or somewhere else, so it earns its place. Leave Assessed Value, Year Built, Square Feet and the mortgage columns out of the mail file and keep a second, wider template for underwriting.

CRM import, from a business job. Matched Business, Business Status, Entity Type, Officer1, Business Address. Five columns, which is close to what most CRM contact importers expect. Business filings rarely list a phone and almost never an email, so the officer is your contact: run Officer1 through a person search and import the phone and email that comes back. Put Officer2, Officer3 and Business EIN in a separate research template rather than pushing them into the CRM.

Expect blanks in any of these. Not every match fills every column, on any search type, and that is normal. A row with an owner name and no email is still a match, and rows that do not match at all are refunded as credits automatically. The pricing page has the per match ladder, and the bulk skip tracing card on the homepage covers the search types.

Exporting a single search

Single searches download too, not just bulk jobs. There are three places to do it:

• One record. Open a result card and use its menu to download that record as a CSV or an Excel file.
• Everything a search returned. On the results page, Export all results downloads every record the search found in one file.
• A past search, without reopening it. In your single-search history, any search that returned records has Download CSV and Download Excel buttons right on its row.

Single search results page with the Export all results button and CSV and Excel options

The CSV and the Excel file are not the same file in two formats. The CSV is one row per record, and lists such as phones, addresses and relatives are spread across numbered columns up to a limit, so a person with more phone numbers than the CSV has columns for will not show every one. The Excel file has those same rows on its first sheet plus extra sheets with no limit, one for phones, one for addresses and so on, each tied back to its record by row number. If you need everything the results page showed, download the Excel file.

Criminal record results export one row per offense, so a person with four offenses fills four rows. A search that found nothing has nothing to download.

If you run the same single search again within 90 days, Bulk Skip Trace offers to show you the result you already paid for instead of charging you again.

The download is the part you touch on every single job, so it is worth setting up once: build your templates on the first file and every list after that comes out ready to import. Create a Bulk Skip Trace account, run a small file, and save the template that fits your stack.