Does import reconcile matching names?

[George]

In Outlook 2003 w/BCM, It looks like you can IMPORT contact data into
Outlook regular contacts or Outlook BCM contacts, although oddly the
interfaces/wizard looks very different.

If I use the File > Import feature, and select source data from ACT, how
does it handle when it sees the same contact (but there are certain to be
some slight differences in some of their fields)?

That is, suppose ACT is attempting to send "John Doe" at IBM, and Outlook
BCM is importing this but Outlook BCM already has "J. Doe" at AT&T (or maybe
it has John Doe at "AT&T HQ").

Thanks,
George

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

I would expect it to import multiple items. But try it and see and let us
know. (I don't have ACT! to play with.

 

[Luther]

Conceptually it is better to think of BCM is a CRM application that is
integrated with the Outlook user interface, and not as CRM extensions
to Outlook.

So, vis-a-vis import, although the menu option to import into Outlook
or BCM appear next to each other, you are importing into two different
systems. When you import Contacts from ACT into BCM, the Outlook
Contacts are not touched.

It appears that BCM duplicate detection is based on the FullName field,
or a combination FirstName and LastName. I don't think BCM would assume
"John Doe" and "J. Doe" are duplicates, but go ahead and experiment.

 

[George]

Thanks, will post what happens when I import the ACT contacts (probably next
week). I think it's going to turn out that there's no merging of contacts
anywhere, even if the names/fileds were a perfect match. That would mean
that, if I have...

-John Doe (with only phone number) in OUTLOOK CONTACTS, and
-John Doe (with address and email) in BCM CONTACTS, and
-John Doe (with title, company name, and address, plus history notes of
phone calls, etc.) in ACT CONTACTS

....then copying or importing everything into BCM CONTACTS (where I need them
to be), will result in 3 records for John Doe...records that will have to be
manually merged. This is real work for someone who has 100's or 1000's of
contacts. Also, the ACT history notes are gone forever after importing...my
understanding is that they don't import, unless you use a special software
tool, sold elsewhere, which claims to import the history notes.

So, a wish list for future versions of MS Outlook BCM is:

1) When copying contacts Outlook-to-BCM, software should detect a possible
"same name" and offer user options on how to handle/reconcile any fields
that are different.

2) When moving/copying contacts BCM-to-Outlook, software should "warn" that
history notes will not be copied, and will be lost if the original BCM
contact is deleted

3) When importing contacts ACT-to-BCM, software should import the history
notes without need for a third-party software.

Still, Outlook BCM offers a lot of promise, IMHO. Thanks for any additional
insights.

 

[BigDog]

Instead of coppying contacts both BCM and OutLook should share the same
instance of a contact. Ones catergorized as "Business" would shoow up
in BCM.

This would be a more integrated approach to applications integrattion.

This would be my wish list/request to future versions of MS Outlook BCM
..

 

[Luther]

BCM Import compares some fields in the imported Contact with the
Contacts in BCM to detect duplicates.

Depending on the user's selection BCM Import will either create a
second Contact or not import duplicated Contacts.

In the v2 Beta the user has a third option during BCM imports, merge
duplicates is the imported Contact is more recent than the one already
in BCM.

In addition duplicates are also detected based on their BCM IDs. This
is useful when Export and Import are used to share data between BCMs.
In my experience most ACT history is imported into BCM.