Import to Public Folder Contact Folder

[Guest]

I am the Administrator and we are running Windows 2003 SP1 Servers with
Exchange 2000 SP3 and using Outlook XP on XP Pro SP2 boxes in the LAN. I have
created a Public Contact List Folder in the Public Folders and granted
permissions to various clients on the network. All clients can see and edit
original contact list I set up. So far, so good.

I want to add contacts from various client's personal contact lists to the
public contact list. I exported just the Contacts .pst folders to a network
share. When I try and IMPORT one of these .pst folders into the public folder
contacts using the Import Personal Folders Wizard, I get the error "Items can
not be created in the root of Public Folders".

Do you have any suggestion how to join multiple personal contact lists into
a master Public List for our users?

Thanks, and all of you are doing a great job!

PS: Maggie, I need to buy your book but can't afford it right now.

 

[Karl Timmermans]

If the objective is simply to copy contacts from a user's local contact's
folder (and assuming that you're this does not involve an extremely large
amount of contacts) - your users only need to follow the instructions below
and stay away from anything related to Outlook's import/export wizard

#1 - Open the contact list you want to copy from
#2 - Highlight the contacts you want to copy to your target folder (using
standard drag 'n drop rules)
a) highlight first contact - hold down shift key - move mouse
down to end of list and highlight that contact
- all contacts in between will become highlighted
--- OR ---
b) hold down Ctrl key - highlight individual contacts
#3 - To copy selected contacts - hold down CTRL key and move selected
contacts to the target folder (again using standard drag 'n drop rules)
#4 - done

*** Caveat: if you follow this process highlighting a LOT of contacts (where
the definition of LOT is not fixed) - you will more then likely run into an
error telling you that you do not have enough memory to complete task (or
some other similar kind of complaint). Just reduce the number of contacts
highlighted and just to stay on the safe side - would close / re-open
Outlook after that message appears before proceeding.

Karl
_____________________________________________________________
ContactGenie - Importer 1.3 / DataPorter 2.0 / Exporter
"Power contact importers/exporters for MS Outlook '2000/2003"
http://www.contactgenie.com

 

[Guest]

Dear Karl:

Thanks for your suggestion.

I solved this by importing each client's contact list I had previously saved
to the network share folder into MY (Administrator) local Outlook Mail-Box
Contact folder. I then opened each contact form and edited it to make sure
the information was saved to the correct fields (you'd be surprised at how
many people had saved the "Company" name in the "Name" field... they didn't
know how to use the drop-down box to select which way they wanted the contact
displayed).

After the contact was edited, I moved the contact to the Public Contact
folder using the standard "Move To Folder..." from the File menu. This had
the pleasant result of also checking to see if there was already a duplicate
in the Public Contact folder and letting me select several options. After I
finished with one client's contact list, I then deleted all the Contacts in
my local Administrator Mail-Box and started the process again. Because there
were only 200 or so contacts total, they're now all in one place in the
Public Contact Folder and correctly entered.

Thanks again for your helpful response!

Jon