Moving from DM to Outlook 2003

A place for discussion on how to use the program more effectively

Post Reply
Daron Wilson
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Feb 12, 2005 11:52 pm
Type the middle number, please (202): 302
Location: Washington State

Moving from DM to Outlook 2003

Post by Daron Wilson »

Thanks for the great program.

I have recently purchased a PDA and I want to use the sync function with contacts in Outlook 2003. I have not been using Outlook 2003 and so wanted to move my information to Outlook from DM. This has proven difficult. I exported to an Excel file, but Outlook moaned about no "named ranges" in the file. I tried to name the ranges, but my Excel challengedness has reared its head and I can't seem to get anything that makes outlook happy. I exported to a comma delimited text file, but Outlook would only import .csv extensions, it wouldn't even show the text file. I tried exporting to a dbase file in order to import that into Access 2003 and then import that into Outlook. Access saw the dbf file, but when I tried to import it complained about no index files. I'm out of my league on that one, so I thought I would get your confirmation on whether the enterprise is workable at all. If there is no way to make it work, I'm fine with that, but if it is a simple slowness on my part I would be grateful for correction.

Thanks for your time.
jmuehleisen
Site Admin
Posts: 737
Joined: Sat May 29, 2004 1:28 pm
Type the middle number, please (202): 202
Location: Kampala, Uganda
Contact:

getting DM and Outlook to play nicely together

Post by jmuehleisen »

Thanks for your good question.

At the present, the Donor Manager / Outlook synch routines are in a very rough form and not ready for use, not even testing.

It's rather tricky ... because the way OL keeps it's data and the way DM keeps its data is different, and how / what to synch ... these are issues I simply haven't figured out yet.

But, here's how I keep my DM data on my PDA. I simply put the file "PartnerNames.xls" that the DM puts in the "My Documents" folder on the PDA. That gives me my most frequenly used data (but not all) on my PDA. It isn't a 2 way synch, though, but it gets you partially there.

Now, you mentioned that outlook wants a CSV file. That's easy. Simply rename the file that the DM makes with a CSV extension. OL should happily import it for you.

But, synching with Outlook (and thus on to the PDA) is the ultimate goal!
John Muehleisen
Mentoring Emerging Christian Leadership in Africa for Excellence / Integrity / Innovation
Daron Wilson
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Feb 12, 2005 11:52 pm
Type the middle number, please (202): 302
Location: Washington State

Thanks for the help

Post by Daron Wilson »

Your csv suggestion worked and the important things like addresses and emails are in outlook. I'll probably use your Excel suggestion on the PDA also. Thanks for the timely and profitable help.

Daron
Post Reply