SBCM: Import Problems with Copy of Outlook Contact

• Microsoft Small Business Customer Manager, included with:
  • Microsoft Office 2000 Small Business Tools
• Microsoft Outlook 2000

SYMPTOMS

If you create a second Outlook contact by using Copy and Paste, the second contact will overwrite the original contact when imported into the Small Business Contact Manager (SBCM). This problem occurs even if you change the Full Name field so that the two Outlook contacts have different names.

CAUSE

This problem occurs because when you copy a contact you also copy all user-defined fields. Two user-defined fields (CMADatabase and CMAContactIndex) are used to identify the SBCM database and the contact's index number within the SBCM database. Since the above scenario creates two contacts with the same user-defined fields, the last contact imported into SBCM overwrites the first contact imported.

You can see the user-defined fields by opening a contact in Outlook and clicking the All Fields tab. In the Select from list, click to select User-defined fields in this item. Microsoft does not recommend editing these field because it will likely break the linkage between the Outlook contact and the SBCM database.

WORKAROUND

The best solution is to create the second Outlook contact manually so that the SBCM import sees it as a new and different contact. When you import the new contact into SBCM, the contact is assigned a new index number so that the SBCM database can treat it separately from the original contact.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article.

Additional query words: OL2K

Keywords : kbsbcm kbsbt
Version : :; WINDOWS:2000
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbbug