importing contacts from excel

[Julie]

I'm having trouble importing contacts into Microsoft Outlook Business Contact
Manager 2007 from an Excel spreadsheet. I have two questions:
1. The mapping process appears to be very simple, but the fields that show
up in the left box that should represent the fields in my Excel spreadsheet
is incomplete so I am unable to map all the fields.
2. I've tried mapping the fields that are available and the wrong
information lands in the contact manager. For example, I very clearly drag
NAME from my spreadsheet over to full name in contact manager. For some
reason TITLE from my spread sheet lands in the name area. I've double
checked myself several times, and I appear to be mapping correctly, but it
just doesn't work right.

Any ideas?

 

[Karl Timmermans]

It's been a long time since working with BCM in terms of import/export but
believe the following is the same as standard Outlook and still holds true
for BCM. On that basis (and will gladly stand corrected if anyone determines
the following to be incorrect as applied to BCM)......

Re: #1 - Available fields

Whether BCM or standard Outlook, the fields that can be mapped are limited
to those listed within the Import/Export wizard. There is no facility to
import data to any custom/user-defined fields.

Re: #2 - FullName

The <FullName> field is a <derived> field that is actually the <sum of its
parts> which are <Title, FirstName, MiddleName, LastName, Suffix>. If you
simply import a <name> to the <Full Name> field, Outlook will attempt to
deciper what component parts are included in the name you are importing and
may or may not correctly make that determination. To ensure accurate info,
the component elements should be imported to the corresponding individual
Outlook names.

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

 

[Julie]

Thank-you for writing back, Karl.
I think maybe BCM has changed since you last saw it. In the import wizard
there is a box on the left listing the fields in the file from which I am
importing. Then, there is a box on the right with fields BCM is set up with.
My data has the contact's full name in one cell. Since BCM has a fields set
up for first name, last name, and also one set up for full name, I have
mapped my full name to BCM's full name. For some reason TITLE from my data
falls into both the TITLE field and the FULL NAME field in BCM.

Also, BCM does have an option of mapping to a new field, but I probably
shouldn't use it for the name.

Is there an easy way in excel to split first and last names into two cells,
or do I have to do that all manually, (I have hundreds of records to import).
If I have to do it manually, I'll probably have to look for a different
Contact Management System. I'm just getting started now.

Thanks,

Julie

 

[Karl Timmermans]

Check out "Split names by using the Convert Text to Columns Wizard" in the
Excel help file - should do the trick for you depending on what is contained
in the FullName field in Excel.

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