International Phone Number Import

[ChrisW]

I'm trying to import several thousand records from an Excel spreadsheet. All
the phone numbers are in international format with the international prefix
("+") followed by the country code and the number (eg "+44 20 7xxx xxxx" for
a London UK number).
When I do the import all the US numbers ("+1 xxx xxx xxxx") are correctly
identified in BCM as US numbers. All the others are stripped of their "+" and
treated as local Singapore numbers (I'm based in Singapore and my computer
knows that!). It seems odd that BCM correctly identifes US numbers and not
any others (or perhaps not given where MS is based!).
Any ideas how I can go about getting the data imported without having to go
through and update each record manually in BCM? Is there a better way to do
the import or a better format for me to use in Excel? Is there a piece of
software that I could use as a "middleman" which speaks Excel and BCM?
Any ideas welcomed.
Thanks, Chris

 

[Luther]

I'm trying to import several thousand records from an Excel spreadsheet. All
the phone numbers are in international format with the international prefix
("+") followed by the country code and the number (eg "+44 20 7xxx xxxx" for
a London UK number).
When I do the import all the US numbers ("+1 xxx xxx xxxx") are correctly
identified in BCM as US numbers. All the others are stripped of their "+"and
treated as local Singapore numbers (I'm based in Singapore and my computer
knows that!). It seems odd that BCM correctly identifes US numbers and not
any others (or perhaps not given where MS is based!).
Any ideas how I can go about getting the data imported without having to go
through and update each record manually in BCM? Is there a better way to do
the import or a better format for me to use in Excel? Is there a piece of
software that I could use as a "middleman" which speaks Excel and BCM?
Any ideas welcomed.
Thanks, Chris

I bet that if you imported a +44 phone number into Outlook Contacts,
the behavior would be the same. If that's the case, then its an issue
with how Outlook manages phone numbers. BCM defers much of the
formatting of phone numbers, street addresses, and emails to Outlook.