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Importing Outlook Contacts into SLX Accounts
Posted: 23 Sep 09 10:13 AM
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One of our (top) salesmen would like to know what options he has to import a contact he has in Outlook directly into a SLX account. I showed him how he can add contacts from SLX to Outlook and I showed him how to change an Outlook contact's category to "SyncSalesLogix", but that isn't working the way we want.
If we change the Outlook contact's category to sync, it pulls in but creates a brand new Account in SLX. We want to add Outlook contacts to existing SLX accounts. Our salesman might get 10-20 vCards that he can place right into Outlook, but then he has to spend a half-hour typing all those contacts in SLX.
Am I missing a tool that the client can use to quickly add an Outlook contact to an existing SLX account? |
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Re: Importing Outlook Contacts into SLX Accounts
Posted: 23 Sep 09 11:18 AM
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The low cost alternative, although not user friendly:
After the Contact has been added to SLX:
- Move the Contact to the Correct Account
- Delete the duplicate Account
Or, (and this is much faster):
- From the list view, select the duplicate accounts (the original one and the one created by the Sync) and then select the Merge Records option from the Context menu. |
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Re: Importing Outlook Contacts into SLX Accounts
Posted: 23 Sep 09 1:07 PM
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A better method might be to use the Insert | Import Leads... feature to import the contact(s) as leads. Then you can convert individual leads to a contact and add them to the appropriate account if it exists. Using this method you can massage the imported data without dirtying the account and contact areas.
John G. |
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Re: Importing Outlook Contacts into SLX Accounts
Posted: 24 Sep 09 7:11 AM
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There is a few good reasons why saleslogix should be the system of record:
- outlook has zero de dup capabilities. The ones it advertises don't work.
- syncing directly to saleslogix will start introducing duplicates since the reconcile process is not foolproof. There is a strong likehood that duplicates could appear in outlook.
When you create a record in saleslogix the system will know the records contact id and will send it once. The contactid is not stored in the slx db by default.
Your best bet is import leads. I haven't met a us who did like a excel spreadsheet.
Note: I typed this from my bb storm. I wrote at contact I'd is not stored in slx what I mean to say is outlook. |
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Re: Importing Outlook Contacts into SLX Accounts
Posted: 24 Sep 09 6:47 PM
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Export Outlook contacts to excel where you either update a field in the outlook contact with an account identifier or add column to excel containing an account identifier. Then import the contact via code or possibly the import tool.  |
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