Importing Outlook contact data that includes categories

Map your Outlook category data

Take a look at your Outlook data to see how you have categorized your contacts. The easiest way to do this is in Outlook:

1. In the Navigation Pane for Contacts, select the By Categories view.

2. On the View menu, point to Expand/Collapse Groups , and then click Collapse All Groups.

   This will show you all the category values you need to map to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Ask yourself the following questions:

1. Does my Outlook contact data map to more than one Microsoft Dynamics CRM record type? For example, do I have some contacts that I categorize as accounts, while others are leads?

   If yes, see "Split exported data by record type based on category values" later in this article.

2. Do I store multiple values in the Categories field? For example, each of the following might be the values in the Categories field for one record:

   • Account, Premiere Customer, Restaurant

   • Lead, Hot

   If yes, see "Separate multiple values in the Categories column" later in this article.

3. Does my company's implementation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM have a field or a field value for each of my Outlook categories? For example, if I have categories "Priority 1" and "Priority 2", is there a field in Microsoft Dynamics CRM that has these exact values?

   There are several Microsoft Dynamics CRM default fields that might map to your Outlook categories:

   • The Job Title or Role fields in the Contact record type.

   • The Relationship Type, Category, or Industry fields in the Account record type.

   • The Job Title, Rating, Industry, or Lead Source fields in the Lead record type.

   Your organization may have already customized Microsoft Dynamics CRM and added other fields or field values that you can use. To see what other fields might be available, open Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and look at the forms for entering new contact, lead, and account records.

   If there are no existing fields that map to each of your category values, you can customize Microsoft Dynamics CRM so it matches your Outlook data. See "Customize Microsoft Dynamics CRM" later in this article.

Make yourself a spreadsheet using the following columns to organize how you want to map each category value:

Split exported data by record type based on category values

If your exported data from Outlook has records that belong in more than one Microsoft Dynamics CRM record type, you'll need to split the exported data file into separate files, one for each record type.

• Put all the records that will become accounts into an Accounts.csv file.

• Put all the records that will become contacts into a Contacts.csv file.

• Put all the records that will become leads into a Leads.csv file.

The easiest way to do this is to:

1. Make three copies of the .csv file you exported from Outlook. Rename the files to be Accounts.csv, Contacts.csv, and Leads.csv.

2. Open each file in Excel, sort the data by the Categories column, and delete any that won't be imported to that record type.

3. Import each file separately.

Separate multiple values in the Categories column

If you have multiple values in the Categories column, you must create new columns, and then divide the data so there is only one value in each column. Each column represents one field in Microsoft Dynamics CRM where you will put the data.

For example, you might have two categories in one record that map to Job Title and Role in Contacts. Here are the steps you'd need to take:

1. Open the exported .csv file in Excel.

2. Make two copies of the Categories column, changing the heading for one column to Job Title, and the other to Role.

3. Clean up the data in each column so that it has one value for each record.

Original Contacts.csv file

New Contacts.csv file with a column for each Category value

Customize Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Note

Customizations typically reflect how all users in your organization want to organize their data, so designing changes requires following whatever processes are set up in your organization. Actually making the customizations requires permissions typically found only in the System Administrator and System Customer security roles.

There are several options you might want to explore: