People new to import/export frequently pose a question to an Outlook group asking “How do I import from program “x”? The typical (and correct) response is “Look to see what formats does “program X” export to and select that”

For some reason, when Outlook is involved, far too many people seem to think that anything involving Outlook is an Outlook issue. What really needs to be understood is that the actual importing and exporting from any program is a defined process. The import/export functionality in Outlook has not changed since Outlook ‘2000 (or possibly Outlook ‘97) and deals with very specific kinds of data.

Step #1

Make sure that whatever product you are using does not provide some kind of fucntionality that will directly update the contact PST files. Most won’t but some have a contact synchronization function. How do you find out? Check the help file for the program in question or go to that vendor’s website. If tools are provided from the vendor to directly update Outlook, remember that whatever happens is NOT an Outlook issue and the place to ask questions or get support should the need arise is from the vendor providing the tool. While you’re checking this, take note of what file formats the program will export its data to, specifically formats like CSV, tab-delimited etc.

Hint: search google using any term similar to “export contacts from ???” (where ??? is the program name). Very often a page outlining the steps will appear immediately.

Step #2

Become familiar with what kind of data Outlook can import data from – do this by going to Outlook’s menu – select File –> Import/Export. On this list you will see two kinds of items: (1) (very old and dated) application specific options and (2) generic file formats such as CSV or Microsoft Excel 97-2003 etc. If you don’t see your program on the list (and you most likely won’t – then the answer is that it cannot import data from that program directly. The source program must first be able to export its own data to one of the formats that Outlook supports. Typically, in 98% of the cases, there will be an option to export to a CSV (comma separated value) file but there are cases where the process is not straight-forward such as AOL, Notes etc.

Step #3

Export the contact info from “Program X” to a common file type. If there are multiple options, the safest format to select is CSV (comma separated values)

Step #4

Import the file into Outlook using the file created in step #3 – it’s a very quick and simple and easy process. From the menu bar –> File –> Import/Export and follow the screens remembering to manually map your fields (click on the MAP Custom fields button when it appears). Remember too, you cannot import data into Outlook user-defined fields and Outlook does not recognize custom forms so any new contact created via the Outlook import process will always use the IPM.Contact (standard contact form) message class. When user-defined fields are involved, you will need to write your own custom code to import the data or use a 3rd party program (such as those in the ContactGenie series)

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