Confusion about contact info when importing data frm Palm via Exce

[Floyd]

I'm trying to import my contact info from Palm Desktop (I have a Zire 71, not
a phone) into Outlook in anticipation of buying a BlackBerry for personal
use. I'm using Knowledge base article KB04437 as a guide, but am still
confused about this process. My outlook is empty so I'm trying to start from
scratch, with a clean slate.

I have exported Palm info into a .csv file, and have opened this in Excel as
the article instructed. The article then says to put headers on the columns
of data. My confusion is about the headers I'm told to put at the top of
each column. Palm allows me to input 7 pieces of contact info...work phone,
mobile phone, other phone, email address, etc....but in no particular order.
When the article says to label the columns "work," "home," "other" etc., the
data from Palm in a particular column might be a contact's home, but for
other contacts its a work or mobile number. It's a mess. I'm ready to do a
great deal cleaning this data up by hand, but have questions.

What does Outlook want in terms of headers (categories)....i.e., can I use
headers of my own? For instance, could I use headers that don't match the
instructions in the article? Many people have direct lines at the office as
well as a general company number, so that's two work numbers. How do I deal
with that? Also cell numbers...the instructions don't provide for that.
What headers does Outlook want, and in what order? Or does it make any
difference? I haven't even begun to deal with addresses...a work address
and a home address. And names...last name/first name in two columns, vice
versa, or both names in one column. I want to get Outlook in order first,
then will deal with importing its data into a BlackBerry when I get it. This
is such a mess and incredibly frustrating!

I have looked all over this site for answers to the issues I've mentioned,
but find no simple explanations....instead just a bunch of references to all
kinds of specific address books, contact lists, etc. that seem to be named
by Microsoft. Anybody have a source I can turn to for simple instructions
for what I'm trying to do? I'm about to rip my hair out, or to go find an
"expert" and pay him/her to do this for me.

I'm using Vista Home Premium, as well as Windows mail which has some of
contact info already. And that is another source of confusion....the
"Windows contacts" list.

 

[Karl Timmermans]

When dealing with a myriad of issues - first suggestion is to deal/resolve
one thing at a time so to that end:

#1 - Single column containing different types of data (i.e. work phone, home
phone etc)

Work & office phone numbers may represent a "phone number" but are two
different pieces of info - something that you would need to clean up before
contemplating doing anything with the data (Outlook or otherwise). In other
words, one column has to have the same meaning for every row (i.e. one
column for <home phone> - one column for <work phone>) - ergo, have clean
definable data before you worry about anything else. Nothing to do with
Outlook.

Same thing applies for your "name" fields where I would suggest that, if
possible, import your first and last names as two separate fields rather
than letting Outloo decipher a "full name". As an aside, the "FullName"
field is nothing more than a derived value (not an actual field perse - or
the "sum of its parts" (create a new contact and click on the FullName
button and you'll see the "parts")

#2 - Column headings in Excel for importing into Outlook

You can use whatever names you want in any column and manually map each
column to its appropriate Outlook field (just be sure to "Map Custom fields"
during the import process). A very, very simple process. Personally, always
recommend people to manually map fields whether or not the column headers in
your Excel worksheet "match" the Outlook field names. Depending on "auto"
field mapping without taking a few seconds to review the mapping is just
asking for trouble.

#3 - Multiple phone numbers

You can import data to a number of different Outlook phone fields - go
through a mock import and look at the various phone fields available to you.
The bad news is that you cannot change the label for any given phone number
and not all phone numbers appear of the primary contact form (are visible
when viewing all data for a contact). You can create a custom form to
include whatever fields you deem relevant for your needs.

All in all, once you have your data cleaned up - the process of getting the
data into Outlook is really simple and straightforward and can be done very
easily using the Outlook import wizard since nothing you have mentioned
involves any custom field data (which you cannot import via the import
wizard nor can you import/create contacts using a custom form).

Karl

___________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer 1.3 / DataPorter 2.0 / Exporter
"Power contact importers/exporters for MS Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com