Odd behavior when importing contacts from Excel

[Vic49]

I had to export my complete contacts folder (1400+ contacts) from Outlook
2007 to an Excel spread sheet to correct the phone numbers to a consistent
format of "(###) ###-#### x####". When I imported the complete data set, any
of the phone numbers that were more than 10 digits "(###) ###-####" (i.e that
had an extension associated with them) were not imported with the rest of the
contact data. However, when I retried the import and only used a small
subset of contacts (12), all the phone number fields were imported correctly.


Thanks in advance for your help!!

 

[Karl Timmermans]

#1 - Did you use the exact same worksheet to import both the complete and
<subset> data? (i.e. using a different named range on import)
#2 - If different worksheets - is the phone number column defined the same
for both (column formatting - i.e. text versus number or general)?
#3 - For the <complete> list - what is the first <row#> that contains an
extension versus just (###) ###-#### or to ask this another way - how may
phone numbers in the first 10-20 or so rows contain an extension in the form
of ( x###) after the phone number?
#4 - If you save your complete list as a CSV file and import that file
instead - do you still have the same issue? (would be very surprised if the
answer was <yes>)

Karl
______________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer/DataPorter/Exporter/Toolkit
"Contact import/export/data management tools for Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com

 

[Vic49]

Karl,

Thanks for your response Below are my answers
#1 - No, I used a different WKS, But insured they both were formatted
identical
#2 - Yes, they were formatted identical.
#3 - The 1st 207 row did not contain an extension (x####), the 208th did. I
tried moving a couple of the contact rows w/ an extension to the top of the
spread sheet and it didn't make a difference, the # ph 3s w/ an ext were not
imported.
#4 - I tried saving as a CSV and importing with the same results.

Thanks again for your assistance

 

[Karl Timmermans]

Out of curiousity, you did verify that the "phone extension" was actually
included in the CSV file, correct?

Given that you are encountering the same issue with both the Excel and CSV
file, feel free to send a sample Excel file that exhibits the behaviour to
"cgsupport AT contactgenie.com" (referencing that you were referred by me
from the newsgroup) - would like to see what kind of issue this involves
given that importing is something that is more than a passing interest.
Anything submitted to us automatically falls under this NDA -
http://www.contactgenie.com/cg20nda.htm Without being able to test the
actual data - impossible to provide anything but guesswork especially since
the issue should have been resolved when importing the CSV file via Outlook
unless there is something really simple that I've overlooked.

If you send the sample dataset - tests will be run with both Outlook and our
own products using both Excel and CSV to see what happens. For those that
may be following this - will post the findings here as well when done.

Karl
______________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer/DataPorter/Exporter/Toolkit
"Contact import/export/data management tools for Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com

 

[Vic49]

Let me verify that the ph # ext was included in the CSV. Thank for you
offer to review my file. One question: What is the relationship b/t Claxton
and Microsoft? Do you develop the contact import program and OEM's it to MS?

 

[Vic49]

Eurika! I tried it again using a .csv and this time it worked. When brings
up the question of why didn't it work with an xls file?

Thank, you have been a tremendous help!

 

[Karl Timmermans]

Not related to MS or the Outlook import/export wizard in any way either now
or in the past.

Karl

______________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer/DataPorter/Exporter/Toolkit
"Contact import/export/data management tools for Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com

 

[Karl Timmermans]

Suspect that the reason that it did not work from the Excel file is that
when importing an Excel file, the first "n" number of rows are scanned to
determine column field types (forget exactly how many but if memory serves
me correctly - it's somewhere between 10-25 which is why I originally asked
the question). If the data outside that range doesn't conform - things don't
work according to plan (US Zip Codes is another field that many find to be a
headache). That may or may not have been the cause of your problem but at
the very least - suspect if not the absolute cause - very closely related.
Similarly on export - you will have the lead "'" (apostrophe) in the Excel
columns which you don't get if exporting to CSV and then opening the CSV
file in Excel etc etc etc

Particuarly for casual Excel users whose primary goal/interest is in getting
a "task" done versus learning Excel idiosyncracies or dealing with "Named
Ranges" (a simple thing for those who are familiar with NR's but a nightmare
for far too many others) - advice would be to save any worksheet as a CSV
file and import that instead (similarly, export to CSV and open that file in
Excel). Other benefits to that approach besides potentially not wasting a
lot of unnecessary time - the Excel file format is irrelevant and data is
always consistent. I love Excel but in this case, the CSV approach is just
easier/faster/better/more reliable way to get to the same result IMHO. (To
be accurate, most of the things mentioned don't stem from Excel itself but
rather from the Excel <file driver> used to read/create Excel data).

Karl
______________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer/DataPorter/Exporter/Toolkit
"Contact import/export/data management tools for Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com

 

[Vic49]

Thanks again Karl. You saved me many a long hours trying figure it out!!