Importing non-importable fields

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  • Start date Start date
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Guest

1. I've got nicknames (and other data for which there isn't a correct import
field mapping) in an Excel spreadsheet (Office 2003). I know the nick can't
be imported directly into the Nickname field. Is there some other scheme or
workaround, such as a global field swap or replace, say, import into User1
then swap into Nickname? This is a recurring, 100-name-per-semester issue,
not hypercritical but a real time suck. And my employer won't spring for a
$100+ import utility program.

2. Does Microsoft Small Business Manager expand/improve the importing
capability?

3. Any way to change field names and just pretend that User Field 1 is
really the Nickname field?

4. On a semi-related matter, I communicate with groups of people, most often
using mail-merge or email-merge. I've been putting all the people into my one
default Contact folder, then accessing them by category. However, I've read
other posts that advocate/recommend using separate folders for separate
groups. To me, that seems to have no advantages and some disadvantages. Any
opinions?

A more rhetorical question: why, oh why, did Microsoft choose to allow us to
import/export some but not all fields? Did they just get tired when typing
the field list? I can see the Outlook '98 not having this 'basic'
functionality, but O2003?? To me, this kind of omission borders on malicious,
or some kind of 'mal' (malfeasance, malodorous, etc).

Sorry for the brief rant. This is, without doubt, the best forum for solid
information about Office out there. Any help appreciated.
 
1) Yes, that's a good solution, and there's a code sample at http://www.outlookcode.com/d/code/convertfields.htm that demonstrates how you might make it work.

2) No.

3) No.

4) I'd use one folder and categories.

5) Probably programming and performance resources. You can make suggestions by posting to the web interface for this forum.
 
Thanks Sue. I'm a VBA novice, but for my circumstances, I would change the
following line of code:

objItem.UserProperties("Custom1") = objItem.User1

to

objItem.UserProperties("NickName") = objItem.User1

...since I am replacing the contents of Nickname with User1. Is that the idea?

Thanks.
 
Nickname is a built-in field, not a custom field. Therefore, it uses the name objItem.property_name syntax as User1. See http://www.outlookcode.com/d/propsyntax.htm

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of
Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
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