ACT 6 import - Act Calls

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G

Guest

Hi There,

When I tried to import my database, all my future calls were posted to the
Phone Log & not as a task. Is there a work around for this?

Thanks
 
Hi There,

When I tried to import my database, all my future calls were posted to the
Phone Log & not as a task. Is there a work around for this?

Thanks
Click to expand...

I don't know an official work around, however your ACT data gets
converted to a .BCM file which then gets imported into BCM.

The .BCM file is XML, and PhoneLog and Task are bound to data in XML
elements. You could try editing the XML to change the PhoneLogs to
Tasks, and then importing the edited file into BCM.
 
Thanks Luther. That's an interesting idea. Is there any documentation to
review to see how the records should look?
 
Thanks Luther. That's an interesting idea. Is there any documentation to
review to see how the records should look?
--
Bob







- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

Create an account and add a PhoneLog and a Task to it. Just give them
names/subjects, the other fields don't matter.

Then export just that account to a BCM file and open the BCM file in
notepad--with earlier versions BCM you can only export the entire
database, in which case you'll have to search for the new account in
the BCM file.

In the file the account will have the PhoneLog and Task as sub-
sections. Compare the two.

Edited for brevity, you should see something like this:
<Account>
....
<FileAs>AccountAlpha</FileAs>
....
<Activity>
....
<ActivityType>15</ActivityType>
<Subject>PhoneLogBeta</Subject>
....
</Activity>
<Activity>
....
<ActivityType>17</ActivityType>
<Subject>TaskBeta</Subject>
....
</Activity>

So, to import the PhoneLog as a task, change the value of ActivityType
from 15 to 17.

Note that BCM will only create Outlook Tasks for Tasks that will
complete in the future, otherwise it just records the task in BCM, so
that it appears in the Account's history.

You can fiddle with the other values of the ACT PhoneLogs in the XML
to customize the Tasks that will be created in Outlook/BCM.

I did something similar a few years ago and ended up writing a simple
program to generate the required BCM to import data from another
application. The trick is to experiment with the XML fields to see
what goes where and so on. Depending on how much data you have it will
either be easier to make the changes manually in BCM, or, if you have
sufficient data, it will be worth you time to massage the data in the
BCM file.
 
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