Combing Multiple User Contact Folders into One Shared Folder.

[Sean Doherty]

Hi there, folks, and thanks for reading.

We are using Outlook 2003 and have MS Exchange Server that allows sharing of folders.

What we are trying to do is create a centralized, read-only shared list of contacts that pulls only certain contacts from a group of individual users.

To put it another way, our users each maintain their own Outlook Contact folders. Within those indepentdently located user Contact folders are our customers. The users also have non-customer contacts in their Contact folders, such as friends, family, vendors, professional contacts, etc.

We would like to get a centralized Outlook Contact folder of all their customers only, and exclude their other non-Customer contacts. This project is not for the use or particular benefit of our users (compliance stuff), so our users are not likely to take detailed steps in maintaining this process on their own, so an "easy to them" solution is required on our part.

This centralized Outlook folder would also be used on an ongoing basis, meaning as the users add new customers to their individual Outlook contacts, the users should need only check a particular field or select a particular Category in Outlook, and the result would be that it automatically would appear in that centralized folder.

To date, I cannot seem to find a solution within Outlook that meets our particular needs.

The users do not want to maintain two separate contact folders (one shareable and one not) if it can be avoided.

One of our end products would be an Export to *.csv of all the Customer data on a regular basis.

As it stands now, our solution is going to be going to the client's desks for periodic Exports of the data into Excel, filtering out records that are not flagged with the category "Customer", and then re-importing the filtered data back into a shared Contacts folder on one of our machines. This is a very imperfect solution that will no doubt result in stale data. However, it is the only solution at this point that least inconveniences our userbase, which is one of our concerns.

I hope that a more elegant solution to our problem can be found.

Any thoughts?

I apologize for the length of the post, as I was hoping to fully explain what we need, and what we can and cannot do at this point.

Thanks in advance for any and all replies.

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[Karl Timmermans]

Focusing on a single point in your description - a custom written solution
would be the only option if your ultimate requirement is to:

"This centralized Outlook folder would also be used on an ongoing basis,
meaning as the users add new customers to their individual Outlook contacts,
the users should need only check a particular field or select a particular
Category in Outlook, and the result would be that it automatically would
appear in that centralized folder."

Some background info questions/issues:

1) How many user's would have the same "customer" in their contact folder?
If more than one - who is the primary owner of that customer info (if
anyone)
2) Are separate "notes" maintained by different users for the same customer
which would be considered "local" (user-specific) info only versus being
updated to the central folder?
3) If more than one user makes changes to a "customer" contact - what is the
"priority" since this could cause an endless raft of back and forth changes
(assuming that not only new customers are to be added but somewhere along
the line - existing information needs to be updated
......................lots more questions/issues

In terms of any importing/exporting requirements in the interim - you may
find this info on ContactGenie DataPorter & Exporter Premium of interest -
both allow for updating of "existing" info with filter capability to target
only the info you want
DataPorter - http://www.contactgenie.com/cg20features.htm
Exporter - http://www.contactgenie.com/cgxfeatures.htm

Karl

______________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer/DataPorter/Exporter/Toolkit
"Contact import/export/data management tools for Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com

 

[Judy Gleeson \(MVP Outlook\)]

I suggest you have a look at the various CRM add-ins to Outlook. There are
many and they help sales teams do what you are describing. Outlook CRM,
Prophet etc. Search Outlook CRM and you should find many.

--

Regards

Judy Gleeson
MVP Outlook

www.judygleeson.com
www.deskdoctors.com

Are you sick of bad email practice? Get a copy of my paper "Implementing
Email Policy" from the Desk Doctors website.

 

[Sean]

Karl,

Thanks for your reply. I think I might have been unclear about the point you
quoted.

There is only going to be data entry on individual machines, so no need to
worry about data ownership. This combined shared folder we envision is going
to be, essentially, read-only to an outside party. They will only export
data, not update, create and/or delete contact information. Our individual
users will continue to updated, create and/or delete any contact information
at their local installation of Outlook.

Duplicate entries in the combined folder are not an issue for what we're
going to be doing. We definitely expect there to be a few duplicate entries
when combining the contact folders, as several users keep in contact with the
same customers as they work together on larger deals. There is a downstream
workaround to any duplicate data we will encounter in this project.

My big problem is, really: how do I create a "view" of each user's data that
limits the dataset to only contacts with categories with the value "Customer"
selected? WITHOUT creating separate folders...

 

[Karl Timmermans]

Just to make sure we're both on the same page in terms of understanding -
will recap what I understand in terms of what you want ...

#1 - Actual primary info will always be resident on a single user's machine
#2 - The "customer" entries in a given user's contact folder to be copied to
a central folder to be <viewed> by parties "other than" the owners. These
"viewers" are to essentially have "read only" access

Not particularly clear about 2 things in your response:

#1) the "target" audience for the customized view.........
#2) reference to "They will only export data, not update, create and/or
delete contact information"..... Does that mean you only want new
"customers" automatically added to the central folder at the time the
contact is created but never modified when changed. One glaring issue with
that is that the user may not have all essential info at hand at the time of
creation so in essence the user choice is a) don't create the new contact
locally until info complete b) have contacts centrally with partial
information.

If every "customer" contact has a consistent value in the categories field,
creating a custom view is simple. Just need to set the <filter> for any view
to look for the desired criteria so that part is really simple. Just go
through the process of creating a new view (or modify an existing one) - set
the "Filter" to match your requirements (what you're going to be looking
for is in the "Advanced" tab when reviewing filter options). This of course
assumes I understood your question correctly.

One thing that I might suggest that may make life significantly easier at
some point in the future - is for each user to tag their "customer" contacts
with some kind of consistent and unique "ownerid" (either as another
category or a user-defined field) so there is always a very simple reference
point when dealing with the central folder later on.

Do have some questions for you (reason for asking just to be upfront about
it is to compare your answers/requirements against a couple of new
ContactGenie products slated for release in the not to distant future - one
of which will do what you're looking for without any user intervention at
all if all primary contact folders are Exchange based )...

#1 - How critical is "real-time" updating of information between user and
central folder versus a scheduled update?
#2 - What kind of numbers does this involve in terms of avg size of an
individual's contact folder?
#3 - How many users?
#4 - If a user deletes a "customer" record from his/her local folder - does
it get deleted from the central folder as well?
#5 - Is the assumption correct that this is some kind of sales environment
and should a user leave the company -
- a) a new user takes over the entire portfolio as is? and/or
- b) customer contact portfolio gets assigned to other
existing people?

And after all of that - would also be remiss if didn't suggest you look at
some of the centralized sync options, a variety of which can be seen at
http://www.slipstick.com


Karl

______________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer/DataPorter/Exporter/Toolkit
"Contact import/export/data management tools for Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com

 

[Sean Doherty]

Thanks again for the replies and all the effort you're putting into this. If we can't get it on this try, methinks we should just let it go, lol.

Let me go back my last paragraph, as I think this is where our trains of thought take different tracks.

"My big problem is, really: how do I create a "view" of each user's data that limits the dataset to only contacts with categories with the value "Customer" selected? WITHOUT creating separate folders..."

Let me go deeper here to further explain what I mean.

"My big problem is, really: how do I create a "view"?"

The term "view" I am using is an attempt to describe a separate object in the application, in this case a "Contact Folder" object, that does not actually contain Contact objects, but presents a filter representation of the Contact objects found in the users "Contacts" folder.

I am not referring to the MS Outlook usage of the term "view" which, as I understand it, refers to a Contac folder object's visual presentation/layout.

To use an example of a SQL Server database: I have a "Products" table in my database that actually stores our company's Product records. My user wants to be able to see only "Widget" type parts, and be able to "slice and dice" the data. To simplify things for him, I can create a "view" of the "Products" table that limits the data presented to only Products where "Product Type" is equal to the value of "Widget".

To the user, the "ProductsWidget" view appears, for all intentents and purposes of functionality, as a database table with only "Widget" records in it. But the "ProductsWidget" vew is in fact only a filtered representation of the data within the "Products" table. No new physical table object was created, but instead a "view" object that allows all the same actions as a table object.

Hopefully that explains what I'm talking about in terms of "view".

"...of each user's data that limits the dataset to only contacts with categories with the value "Customer" selected? WITHOUT creating separate folders..."

Our users are willing to make a portion of their contacts, their customer contacts only, available for this project.

Out users, however, will not do so if they have to make their entire Contacts folder available and then trust us to only view it with the proper filter. Nor will our users change their processes to maintain both the standard "Contacts" folder and then split out their customers and maintain a second folder of "CustomerContacts". The extent of the effort they're willing to put in is to mark customer contacts with an Outlook category of "Customer".

From what I have come to understand, when I create an "Outlook View", I am still working with the same "Contacts" folder and all the contacts therein, but only temporarily changing the Layout/Display and filter. As soon as the user needs to see a contact that is not a customer, that "view" is no longer available until he reapplies the filter/"Customizes Current View".

I don't see how this approach can meet out needs because, as I said, our usrs will not make their entire Contacts folder available for sharing.

I cannot seem to wrap my head around how Outlook can present this data to us in a way that the user's other contacts are not made available, because those database-style views do not seem to exist anywhere that I can find. We would need to be able to look at their customers on-demand, essentially. Our process cannot rely upon contacting 80 users and asking them to go in and apply a filter and then sharing their Contacts folder. This would be a logistical impossibility for us.

Again, I thank you for all the time and effort you've put into trying to help me. I think part of the problem is that I come from a object-driven world of relational data structures, and Outlook appears to be beast of a whole different type that doesn't seem to have any such design elements/concepts in place (or at least that's the best I can tell). As such I think our communication is greatly hindered from the outset.



Karl Timmermans wrote:

Just to make sure we are both on the same page in terms of understanding -will
05-Nov-09

Just to make sure we are both on the same page in terms of understanding -
will recap what I understand in terms of what you want ...

a central folder to be <viewed> by parties "other than" the owners. These
"viewers" are to essentially have "read only" access

Not particularly clear about 2 things in your response:

delete contact information"..... Does that mean you only want new
"customers" automatically added to the central folder at the time the
contact is created but never modified when changed. One glaring issue with
that is that the user may not have all essential info at hand at the time of
creation so in essence the user choice is a) do not create the new contact
locally until info complete b) have contacts centrally with partial
information.

If every "customer" contact has a consistent value in the categories field,
creating a custom view is simple. Just need to set the <filter> for any view
to look for the desired criteria so that part is really simple. Just go
through the process of creating a new view (or modify an existing one) - set
the "Filter" to match your requirements (what you are going to be looking
for is in the "Advanced" tab when reviewing filter options). This of course
assumes I understood your question correctly.

One thing that I might suggest that may make life significantly easier at
some point in the future - is for each user to tag their "customer" contacts
with some kind of consistent and unique "ownerid" (either as another
category or a user-defined field) so there is always a very simple reference
point when dealing with the central folder later on.

Do have some questions for you (reason for asking just to be upfront about
it is to compare your answers/requirements against a couple of new
ContactGenie products slated for release in the not to distant future - one
of which will do what you are looking for without any user intervention at
all if all primary contact folders are Exchange based )...

central folder versus a scheduled update?
individual's contact folder?
it get deleted from the central folder as well?
and should a user leave the company -
- a) a new user takes over the entire portfolio as is? and/or
- b) customer contact portfolio gets assigned to other
existing people?

And after all of that - would also be remiss if did not suggest you look at
some of the centralized sync options, a variety of which can be seen at
http://www.slipstick.com


Karl

______________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer/DataPorter/Exporter/Toolkit
"Contact import/export/data management tools for Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com

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[Karl Timmermans]

If your over-riding question /requirement nets out to "is there a way to
create a "virtual" contact folder from within Outlook itself (i.e. equiv to
a DB view/recordset object)?" - answer is no. Any Outlook view is the equiv
of a DB view in that it presents the desired info of the underlying data
(folder) both in terms of fields and filter specification - the difference
being that Outlook <displays> the result when the view is applied (made the
default) whereas a DB <view> only returns the data to the <consuming>
program which in turn determines what to do with that info. By the same
token, have never explored programmatically accessing contacts via any kind
of existing pre-defined "Outlook view" (active or otherwise) which is the
equivalent of opening a DB <view> versus <table>. From where I sit that
would be your only option and perhaps someone else may weigh in and offer
other input in that regard. However, if that was a viable approach then
every user would have to have the same view created and <trust> that the
code accessing their info is only utilizing this particular "view" since
there would be nothing a user could do to stop you from accessing whatever
you want once you have access to the account defeating the whole purpose of
a user controlling what contacts can and cannot be accessed in a given
folder.

As a side comment, from a corporate prespective, as a former corporate
manager, would have a hard time swallowing user's telling me that "corporate
owned" info (customers) is not accessible because private info is
inter-mixed - that is something that just doesn't compute. Allowing private
data to exist and respecting that is one thing - not being allowed access to
corporate property is another which begs the question of who is actually "in
control"? The onus should be on the user to segregate and maintain private
info separately from corporate info - not the other way around.

Karl

______________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer/DataPorter/Exporter/Toolkit
"Contact import/export/data management tools for Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com

 

[Sean]

Karl,

Thanks for your help. It did not seem as though it was possible, so I
appreciate your well-informed confirmation.

Regarding your side comment, all I can say is that not all businesses are
the same. In some, the business is relationships, and the sales folks bring
the clients to the business and those clients will leave the business if the
sales person moves on.

I'll equate the situation to that of a top-notch hair stylist: it doesn't
matter what salon that stylist is at, his/her loyal customers will follow the
sytlist. Top-notch stylists bring customers with them and add varying levels
of prestige as well.

Other businesses are solely about trusing the person with whom you're
transacting your business. In those cases, the actual firm is really just
there to provide a little reciprocal prestige and functional
support/infrastructure in exchange for a cut of the sales person's income.

To be honest, for what we do, I'm amazed that we're being allowed even this
level of access. It still remains to be seen if this duct-tape and chewing-gu
approach that Outlooks seems to be relegating us to take here is going to
even fly.

Thanks again, Karl. I wish you the best of luck with ContactGenie.

Sincerely,

Sean

 

[Sean]

Judy,

I appreciate your reply. I'll look at them a bit more closely to see if they
can meet our needs.

Thanks again.

Sean

 

[Pamela]

Hi Sean,

Did you ever find a solution to what you were looking for? I read your
original post and it describes exactly what I am currently looking for.

Best regards,

Pamela