Entourage maps incorrect fields from text file

[MacGrrl]

I am trying to import contacts from Business Contact Manager (boo-
hiss). I"ve exported contacts to a csv file, then saved as a text
delimited file. It maps the wrong things - for instance, some street
addresses appear in teh country field, which I never fill in, and some
addresses are broken down by single word and spread across several
fields.
When I pull the actual file up and check it, the csv and text file
appear to be fine. If I arrow over to the country field, it's blank.
It even breaks up the comments in the comments field and splits them
up into separate fields.
???
I"ve been trying to get my contact history linked items out of BCM
2003 for weeks -- could not run a report, could not export, and even
after two calls to MSoft tech support realized that the only option
was to go into each contact, manually, open each note and phone log,
and transfer it with the dates over to the comments field. And now
this?
Thanks, please help!

I am really surprised to have this many problems with a Microsoft
product, esp. BCM.

 

[Diane Ross]

I am trying to import contacts from Business Contact Manager (boo-
hiss). I"ve exported contacts to a csv file, then saved as a text
delimited file. It maps the wrong things - for instance, some street
addresses appear in teh country field, which I never fill in, and some
addresses are broken down by single word and spread across several
fields.
When I pull the actual file up and check it, the csv and text file
appear to be fine. If I arrow over to the country field, it's blank.
It even breaks up the comments in the comments field and splits them
up into separate fields.
???
I"ve been trying to get my contact history linked items out of BCM
2003 for weeks -- could not run a report, could not export, and even
after two calls to MSoft tech support realized that the only option
was to go into each contact, manually, open each note and phone log,
and transfer it with the dates over to the comments field. And now
this?
Thanks, please help!

I am really surprised to have this many problems with a Microsoft
product, esp. BCM.

We aren't as knowledgeable about what to do on the PC end of things, but
hopefully, we can point you in the right direction.

Check out these options:

Little Machines Outlook to Mac:

<http://www.littlemachines.com/>

Export-Import Entourage. You'll find the script on Scriptbuilders
<http://scriptbuilders.net/>

For more on Cross Platform Help see

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/cross_platform/>

--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog
<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

 

[William Smith]

I am trying to import contacts from Business Contact Manager (boo-
hiss). I"ve exported contacts to a csv file, then saved as a text
delimited file. It maps the wrong things - for instance, some street
addresses appear in teh country field, which I never fill in, and some
addresses are broken down by single word and spread across several
fields.
When I pull the actual file up and check it, the csv and text file
appear to be fine. If I arrow over to the country field, it's blank.
It even breaks up the comments in the comments field and splits them
up into separate fields.
???
I"ve been trying to get my contact history linked items out of BCM
2003 for weeks -- could not run a report, could not export, and even
after two calls to MSoft tech support realized that the only option
was to go into each contact, manually, open each note and phone log,
and transfer it with the dates over to the comments field. And now
this?

Entourage can import comma and tab delimited files. Is your BCM export
one of these? If you have the option to both types of delimited files
then try exporting using the other method and see if that works for you.
If you've exported a comma delimited file try exporting a tab delimited
file instead.

Hope this helps! bill

 

[MacGrrl]

Well I ended up spending a few hours with Microsoft BCM tech support,
and we finally solved the problem.

It seems that it was twofold..
1) since all the fields for like 500 contacts were not exactly perfect
- sometimes the city and state were grouped together with a comma
between them, it threw off the entire file.
3) I copied over each little note and phone log, into the comments
field on the detalis tab. Some of the comments had commas in them.
Hence more mayhem.

I had to send him the original BCM file, and he imported it into
Outlook, then exported it a different way several times. There was no
getting around the comments field so we had to remove it. He ended up
sending me a separate text file which had tonly the comments field and
the contact name. I will have to copy the comments over manually into
each comment.

Then, I had to do a find and replace to get rid of all the quotes.

I'm very disappointed that Microsoft did not make a path to import
from other Microsoft products. I love Entourage but hope that further
editions will be more developed and anticipate some of these extended
needs, as well as morph into more of a CRM than it is now.

BCM 2003 was a nightmare. I hear it's had some improvements, but I'm
stunned that Microsoft would make such a shoddy product since their
products are usually so great.

I'd still take Entourage over Outlook any day though, even with its
limitations.

 

[MacGrrl]

Update - It looks like most of the contacts are okay. There are a few
rogue ones and a lot of things out of place, but as long as the names
and numbers are in the correct contacts, I can adjust those later on.