Journals: Import notes and assign to Contacts

[Lightjag]

I am in the process of converting Goldmine 7.0 Contact Info and Notes to
Outlook 2007.

In an effort to import "Notes" associated with various contacts into
Outlook Journals with date and possibly the person who made the note, I have
exported Journals from Outlook 2007 to Excel 2003, in order to see the
format that data needs to be in order to import back into Outlook Journals.

Exported Journal headers:

JournalType Subject StartDate StartTime Categories Companies Duration BillingInformation Mileage Private Body ContactAddressType ContactAddress ContactName Priority Sensitivity

Q1: Since all of the Journals are associated with a contact, I would expect
the “ContactName†to be in all records. Some records do not list the
“ContactName†and others list different variations of the contact name, why?


Q2: I was able to import the journal from excel 2003 after assigning a name
range to the data, but it did not associate it with a contact as I had
specified in the "ContactName" field. How do I import a journal and have it
associated with a contact?

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Was there something you didn't understand about my response to this issue
that you also posted at
http://www.outlookcode.com/threads.aspx?forumid=2&messageid=27234? I already
explained how you need to use the JournalItem.Links.Add method to add a
contact link to a journal entry.

 

[Lightjag]

Thanks for your response (I didn’t receive email notification of your post on
the other site). I have exported ALL contact info (including the
Notes/Journals attached to each contact) from Goldmine 7.0 to Excel 2003. I
can reformat the data so I can import it to Outlook. But first I need to
understand how Outlook links a Journal to a contact. I tried to understand
how Outlook did this by creating a Journal and linking it to a contact in
outlook and then export it to excel, but I had issues (see Q1 & Q 2 below).
I would think there would be a way without programming (i.e. import data from
excel). The process I went through below SHOULD work. Please try the steps
I did below and see if you can figure out where I am going wrong. If I can
import names, addresses, telephone numbers, why can’t I bring in Journals
(that are linked to specific contacts)? Do I need to change the header
fields? Thanks for any help you can give me.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

As I indicated in my reply to your post on the other forum, you're not doing
anything wrong. Outlook simply doesn't work the way you expect it to. Links
are make through the Links collection, which means you'll need to write some
import code to create new items, populate their property values, and add a
contact link through the Links.Add method.

Alternatively, you might be able to change the mapping so that the contact
information is imported into a journal property that isn't used by any other
data you're importing. In that case, you can do the import manually, then
write code to iterate the imported items and update each one with the
necessary link(s).
--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Microsoft Outlook Programming: Jumpstart
for Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Lightjag]

Ok thanks. I have a couple of questions:

OPTION #1:
Is there a 3rd party program that would import the journals (currently in
excel) for me, inorder to avoid writing code? I have limited experiance with
code writing.

OPTION #2: Links.Add method:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb175245.aspx

I have approx 4k journals, this method appears that it "prompts the user for
the name of a contact " one at a time.

What would be the procedure for the method:
a) Data in excel. import journals. now they are unlinked.
b) Run code "links.add" method in outlook, what happens next?

OPTION #3: change the mapping Method:
How would this process work?
a) "contact information is imported into a journal property" (not used): ex/
birthday
b) "can do the import manually": using MSFT import wizard?
c) " write code to iterate the imported items and update each one with the
necessary link(s)." ==> if possible can you help me out with some code?

P.S. I would of thought MSFT would of made this process (importing linked
Journals) more automatic like with names, numbers and addresses. They make
it very difficult trying to migrate from someone elses CRM package to
Outlook.

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

Sue's on vacation.

#1. Look at the Utilities pages at www.slipstick.com to see what's available
out there, if anything.

#2. If you run that code you get prompted approximately 4K times for the
contact to link to that journal item. Without some cross-reference or
pre-defined linkages already established there really isn't much choice.

#3. If the contact name was in a property in the journal item such as
Mileage, generally unused, then code could read Mileage, look for a
corresponding contact name and then add that contact object to the Links
collection for that journal item.

None of us can answer for what MS features decides to provide for its
applications. Any gaps are filled because the applications are programmable.
MS could never provide every feature, utility and add-on that any arbitrary
person could decide was absolutely essential.

You can find code samples for the Links collection at www.outlookcode.com.
Search there on that term and use the code samples as a starting point for
your efforts. You can then post your code here if you have problems and
someone will probably help you.