How to do Field Mapping: Importing ACT! into Business Contact Mana

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Guest

I am trying to map my user-defined fields in ACT! into Business Contact
Manager during the BCM conversion. It seems straight forward in old Outlook
Import/Export, but in BCM these fields just end up in comments. For example,
our ACT data has a field called "Industry" that might map well to Category in
BCM. If there a mapping option or a way to create a macro to move the fields
from Comments later, that would would great.

Also how does one change and display the default fields in BCM. We have a
few user fields from ACT! that don't seem to have a BCM equiv? We still want
to be able view and sort these.

Regards
Eric
 
Please do the following to successfully import data from ACT into BCM.

To export ACT! data for use in another program:
1. Launch ACT!, opening the database you want to export from.
2. Click the File menu, point to Data Exchange, then click Export. The
Export Wizard opens.
3. In the File type drop-down list, click Text - Delimited.
4. To the right of the Filename and location box, click the browse button.
The Save As dialog appears.
5. In the Save as type drop-down list, click either Text - Delimited (*.txt)
or Text - Delimited (*.csv).
6. Navigate to the folder you want to save the file to, then enter a name
for the exported file into the File name field. ACT! will create this file
for you. Click Save. 7. Click Next to advance the Export Wizard.
8. Under What kind of records do you want to export?, enable either Contact
records only or Group records only. When exporting to a text-delimited file,
you can only export one record type at a time. If you need to export both,
first export the contacts to one file, and then export the groups to a
second file.
9. (Optional) To specify the export options:
a. Click Options. The Export Options dialog box appears.
b. Under Select field separator, click either Comma or Tab. The default is
Comma. The application you will be importing the data to determines which
field separator you should use.
c. Under Do you want to export field names?, enable the Yes, export field
names check box if required. This option can be useful for mapping fields
when you import into another application.
d. Click OK to close the Export Options dialog box.
10. Click Next to advance the Export Wizard.
11. Under Which contact or group records do you want to export?, click one
of the following:
.. Current record exports only the currently displayed record.
.. Current lookup exports all the records in the current lookup.
.. All records exports all records in the database.
12. Click Next to advance the Export Wizard.
13. The final page of the Export Wizard allows you to specify the order of
exported record fields in the text-delimited file. Modify the field export
order or remove fields from the export process as you require. Or, if you
previously saved a field map, click the Load Map button.

Note: To ensure a smooth import process into the destination application, it
is important that you set up the field order to match the order in the
destination
application. For example, if you will be importing the text-delimited file
into an Excel spreadsheet, ensure you sequence the fields in the same order
that they
appear in the spreadsheet.

.. To change the order of fields in the list, click the field name in the
list above which you want to insert the field and then click Insert Field.
For example, if you
want to insert a field above Company, click Company and then click Insert
Field. When you click Insert Field, a drop-down list appears from which you
can select the field you want to insert. When you insert the field, the
field moved from its previous location in the list to the location you
specified.

.. To remove a field from the list, click any field in the list and then
click Remove Field. When you click Remove Field, the field is removed from
the list and
will not be exported. If you remove a field from the list, you can always
add it back by clicking Insert Field.

.. To replace a field in the list, click the field you want to replace. A
drop-down arrow appears to the right of the field. In the drop-down list,
click the field
that you want to replace the active field. The field that previously
appeared in that location is replaced with your selection.

14. (Optional) If you expect to need the field map again, click the Save Map
button. In the Save As dialog box, navigate to the folder you want to save
the map
in, enter a File name for the map, and then click Save. Map files are saved
with a .map extension.

15. Click Finish to begin the export process.

To import the ACT! data into Business Contact Manager:

Open Outlook 2003-> File-> Import and Export-> Business Contact Manager->
Import a file-> Next-> choose Comma Separate Values(.csv)-> Next-> Click
Browse-> Go to the location where you have stored the data (as a text
delimited file)-> Select the file and click open-> Next-> Select the
destination-> Ensure that the checkbox next to the file name is checked->
Click Map-> Drag each of the fields to the relevant field on the right
side-> Click OK-> Click Next and this will start the importing.


--
Hope this helps!!!

Best Regards

Sudharson AN
 
Thanks, but I knew of this method. The problem with it is that all contact
history records are, well, just history if you use text file transfers. The
good thing about the BCM conversion wizard is that it will move the histories
along with the contacts (well, some of the histories, but that is for another
post). I was really hoping to be able to use the conversion wizard, but just
do some additional field mapping.

Regards
Eric
 
The reason the ACT! user-defined fields end up in the comments field is
because BCM v2 does not support user-defined fields. This does work in
the bcmv3 Beta. You can select which ACT! user-defined fields to import
and the fields get added to the BCM entity--Accounts or Business
Contacts.
 
This is good to know. Where can I download the BCMV3 beta? I can't seen to
find it on the MSC web.
 
Now that is torture... What to give any hints?

Right now contact manager systems in general are driving my nuts - no matter
what product I use there seems to be either a crazy limitation or a
significant amount of data loss. All suggestions appreciated. Even 3rd party
products, if it saves my data.

Eric
 
Eric Byres said:
Now that is torture... What to give any hints?

Right now contact manager systems in general are driving my nuts - no
matter
what product I use there seems to be either a crazy limitation or a
significant amount of data loss. All suggestions appreciated. Even 3rd
party
products, if it saves my data.

Eric
Click to expand...

I have a local request for something similar.

I'll figure it out with that client, if they choose to do business with me,
and then I'll post some detailed steps. Otherwise, I'll try it with some
trials of Act and see what it takes, but that'll be lower on my priorities
list.

Your data is never lost. Because it's a simple SQL back-end application, we
can always import additional data after the initial migration. As a
compromize, you could map the history items to some unused field in the BCM
form.
 
Any luck?

Leonid S. Knyshov said:
I have a local request for something similar.

I'll figure it out with that client, if they choose to do business with me,
and then I'll post some detailed steps. Otherwise, I'll try it with some
trials of Act and see what it takes, but that'll be lower on my priorities
list.

Your data is never lost. Because it's a simple SQL back-end application, we
can always import additional data after the initial migration. As a
compromize, you could map the history items to some unused field in the BCM
form.
--
Leonid S. Knyshov, CEO
Crashproof Solutions, LLC - http://www.crashproofsolutions.com
MCP Exchange 2003/Small Business Server 2003, CCNA, SCSA 8, NCIE
Microsoft Small Business Specialist Partner
Click to expand...
 
Eric Byres said:
Any luck?
Click to expand...

:) Didn't get their business ultimately yet, but we'll see. I think we'll be
concentrating on BCM V3 shortly anyway. It promises to be a breakthrough
product. It's not a public beta yet and I can't wait for it to integrate
with my SBA2007 Beta.

Anyway, I have it in my plans to see what can be done with Act. There is a
company that offers ACT to Outlook conversion, so you may want to give them
a call. http://personalcrm.com/

I intend to try their product. I think it's not too challenging to create
native BCM records from a combined "notes" record.
 
Importing ACT! to BCM

There's a company that specializes on this, namely ACT-To-BCM.com Check them out.
 
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