Flat File Import

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Guest

Hi,

New to BCM so apologies if dumb question.

I have a flat, non-normalised spreadsheet with business contacts which needs
to be imported into BCM. Obviously I can just import it as Business Contacts
- the question is how do I also then set up the Accounts and link the
contacts based on that ? Any shortcuts ? Doing this manually for 4000
contacts doesn't sound fun.
 
Hi,

New to BCM so apologies if dumb question.

I have a flat, non-normalised spreadsheet with business contacts which needs
to be imported into BCM. Obviously I can just import it as Business Contacts
- the question is how do I also then set up the Accounts and link the
contacts based on that ? Any shortcuts ? Doing this manually for 4000
contacts doesn't sound fun.
Click to expand...

Whether you also need Accounts in addition to Business Contacts
depends on how you do business, and how that maps to BCM. Accounts are
intended for entities that you will bill (actually sell things or bill
time to). Business Contacts are intended for people you communicate
with. You will need Accounts if you integrate to integrate with
Microsoft Accounting because they follow the same model of only
exchanging money with Accounts/Customers.

For example, if there are five people at Acme Corp that you
communicate with, and you send invoices to Acme Corp when you make a
sale, you will want to have 5 Business Contacts for the people,
parented by one Acme Corp Account.

BCM is only designed to handle customers. It doesn't have support for
other types on of business contacts like vendors, suppliers and so on,
although you can enter them as Business Contacts or Accounts and still
take advantage of BCM features like communications history.
 
Hi Mick,

you are not the only one struggling with this. I have posted previously
without getting any answer.

What I have found, is that this can be done by SQL programming. There are
two tables containing the data you need, if my memory serves me correct they
are "ContactMainTable" and "ContactNameTable". The name table connects the
Contact with a Service ID, and the MainTable connects that serviceID with
both Contacts and its parenting account. (Both companies and contacts are
treated as "outlook contacts", but have some different fields, and a column
containing either 1 or 2 differentiates companies from contacts.)

By altering the data manually in SQL have succeeded in connecting a contact
to an account, but am waiting for help to do this in a batch job where all
contacts are connected to their respective Company, as I have around 2000
companies and 5000 contacts and cannot do this manually.

I will try to update here when I get this done.

By the way, to get access to the database, I installed BCM normally, then
installed SQL Server Management Studie Express.

I am actually very surprised (and frustrated) by the lack of support in the
import function for this, I believe a lot of customers have existing data
that must be imported with company linking intact. I have already lost a
possible customer on BCM due to this.

To Luther: I have to disagree. This is a system designed to handle
companies. By default it has a lot of features that rely on this linking
being used, just look at the different reports you can do. An everyday
example: I get an incoming phone call. I need to quickly gain access to all
information regarding this company. Is it on credit hold, who was the last to
speak to this customer, is there ongoing sales processes with others in the
same company etc etc...this requires above mentioned linking to work.

If you run a business without this kind of need, "contacts" in outlook
without BCM will probably be good enough.
 
In terms of integrating with MOA...What about a business to people model
where your services (like mine) are delivered to individual persons (John &
Jane Q. Publlic) at large with no organizational relationship? Obviously
these individuals initially start out in the business sales cycle as a
Business Contact record designated as a Lead. I then ideally convert these
Leads into a viable Opportunity Record (Linked to the Business Contact) using
the same protocol as the MS CRM Dynamics 3.0 process. Once an Opportunity
closes with a successful transaction must I then convert this 1 single person
into a full Account Record in order to convert the Opportunity to a Purchase
Order and Invoice them in MOA?

In my Small Business I network among a lot of referral organizations (Nursing
Homes & Assisted Living Centers) for Lead generation and I relate to these
categorized referral sources as Hierarchial Account Records but each of my
consulting transactions takes place between my company (An Account) and an
individual consumer (A Business Contact). If Business Contact Manager is
designed to only handle "Customers" ... MY customers are people not
organizations!

Can anyone say the phrase "One size fits all limitation?"

If Microsoft wants to truly create a seamless and integrated experience
between Outlook, BCM, and Office Accounting, they need to allow for a wider
range of common everyday business relationship scenarios in the design of
these applications. If this is not done the exciting sales rhetoric behind
these Office System solutions will continue to ring hallow and piss off a lot
of folks expecting what they thought they were getting into and finding out
differently later.

-THP




Hi,
Click to expand...
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
contacts based on that ? Any shortcuts ? Doing this manually for 4000
contacts doesn't sound fun.
Click to expand...

Whether you also need Accounts in addition to Business Contacts
depends on how you do business, and how that maps to BCM. Accounts are
intended for entities that you will bill (actually sell things or bill
time to). Business Contacts are intended for people you communicate
with. You will need Accounts if you integrate to integrate with
Microsoft Accounting because they follow the same model of only
exchanging money with Accounts/Customers.

For example, if there are five people at Acme Corp that you
communicate with, and you send invoices to Acme Corp when you make a
sale, you will want to have 5 Business Contacts for the people,
parented by one Acme Corp Account.

BCM is only designed to handle customers. It doesn't have support for
other types on of business contacts like vendors, suppliers and so on,
although you can enter them as Business Contacts or Accounts and still
take advantage of BCM features like communications history.
Click to expand...
 
Hi Mick,

you are not the only one struggling with this. I have posted previously
without getting any answer.

What I have found, is that this can be done by SQL programming. There are
two tables containing the data you need, if my memory serves me correct they
are "ContactMainTable" and "ContactNameTable". The name table connects the
Contact with a Service ID, and the MainTable connects that serviceID with
both Contacts and its parenting account. (Both companies and contacts are
treated as "outlook contacts", but have some different fields, and a column
containing either 1 or 2 differentiates companies from contacts.)

By altering the data manually in SQL have succeeded in connecting a contact
to an account, but am waiting for help to do this in a batch job where all
contacts are connected to their respective Company, as I have around 2000
companies and 5000 contacts and cannot do this manually.

I will try to update here when I get this done.

By the way, to get access to the database, I installed BCM normally, then
installed SQL Server Management Studie Express.

I am actually very surprised (and frustrated) by the lack of support in the
import function for this, I believe a lot of customers have existing data
that must be imported with company linking intact. I have already lost a
possible customer on BCM due to this.

To Luther: I have to disagree. This is a system designed to handle
companies. By default it has a lot of features that rely on this linking
being used, just look at the different reports you can do. An everyday
example: I get an incoming phone call. I need to quickly gain access to all
information regarding this company. Is it on credit hold, who was the last to
speak to this customer, is there ongoing sales processes with others in the
same company etc etc...this requires above mentioned linking to work.

If you run a business without this kind of need, "contacts" in outlook
without BCM will probably be good enough.








- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

You can use the PublicContactsView in the database to update Business
Contacts and their parent Accounts. That's how other applications,
like MOA, do it. Manipulating the database tables directly can get you
into trouble; e.g. a corrupt db.
 
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