Exporting and Importing Outlook Contacts

[Stever]

I'd like to add about 400 Outlook contacts to the Ascendis database. I tried exporting Outlook contacts as a csv file, but Ascendis didn't import them. I played around with Outlook's export custom mapping of fields, but I still couldn't get it to work.

Is is possible to import contact data from Outlook? If so, can you provide some details on how to do this?

Thank you,
Steve Smith

[Bill Root]

Hello Steve,

When Outlook exports to CSV it includes about 92 fields, and Ascendis Caller ID only cares about 3 of them: first name, last name, and phone number. Also, Ascendis Caller ID only supports one phone number per contact, whereas Outlook has about 16. This is likely to be a problem unless all your contacts only use one phone number and you put it in the same field for all of them.

In addition, Ascendis Caller ID expects the phone number to be like it would be received from your modem or other caller id device. Outlook exports the phone numbers in canonical format, which means they look something like +1 (800) 555-1212. Most phone systems don't include the leading '1' for caller id (but some do), so you will probably have to remove the leading "+1" from these numbers using a global find and replace in a text editor. If you name the phone number column "Phone" in the CSV file and use the beta version of Ascendis Caller ID mentioned below, the non-numeric formatting should not matter.

The current beta version (1.9.1.23) has several import fixes since the last release version, so you will need to use it. You can download the latest beta version here:
http://ascendis.com/callerid/CallerID_Beta_Setup.EXE

To successfully import from Outlook CSV files, we recommend the following:

• 1) Remove all columns from the Outlook csv file except the first name, last name, and phone number columns. This is quite easy in Excel, since you can delete a column at a time. Save the changes and close the file.
  2) Open the csv file in a text editor. If your phone system gives caller numbers without the leading '1' (look at an entry in Ascendis Caller ID, or on a caller id box or phone) then replace all "+1 " with "". Save the changes and close the file.
  3) Make copies of this file for each phone number column with phone numbers in it.
  4) In each copy, remove all phone number columns but one. Keep a different column in each file. In all files, name the phone number column "Phone".
  5) In Ascendis Caller ID, select File -> Import -> Callers and select one of the files. Repeat for each file.

The finished csv file should look something like this:

Code: Select all

First Name,Last Name,Phone
Jeff,Clark,(212) 714-7586
Constance,Cassler,(123) 935-3856

Please let me know if you encounter any problems or have any questions.

Finest regards,
Bill Root
Ascendis Software