Importing an Excel phone list into Outlook

This article will show you how to import an Excel phone list into Outlook.

Example: My current engagement involves a few different companies and the "prime" company maintains a central phone list for everyone working on this engagement, unfortunately it is kept in Excel instead of a shared Outlook contact list or even a database. To make the list more usable both within Outlook and on my Windows Mobile device, I use the following steps to import this list into Outlook.

These procedures are specific to this particular phone list, but the concepts should be useful for any Excel to Outlook import. I am using Outlook 2007 and Excel 2007 in these examples, but the steps should still work in older versions.

1. Open the phone list (NG Team Contact List.xls) in Excel and delete any extraneous rows or columns. When you are done there should be one row with the column headings, followed by consecutive rows containing the phone list data (name, email, phone, address, etc).
2. Change the first column (or insert a new one) to "Categories", and fill the column with the value: NG Team Contact List
3. Save the list as a .CSV file (Comma Separated Values). I've found that outlook's import straight from an Excel (.XLS) file is problematic. The simpler import from a .CSV file tends to go a bit more smoothly.
   
    
   
4. Within Outlook's contacts section, select your main contact list and then choose File -> Import and Export
   
5. Choose the option Import from another program or file and click Next
   
6. Choose the option Comma Separated Values (Windows) and click Next
   
7. Locate the file to import, select Allow duplicates to be created and click Next
   
8. Select the Contacts folder within your Mailbox and click Next
   
9. Click on the Map Custom Fields button
   
10. Here you can match up the fields in the .CSV file with those in Outlook's contacts list.
    
    Here is the mapping that I found useful for the NG Team Contact List:

    From .CSV File	Outlook Contacts
    Categories	Categories
    Last Name	Last Name
    First Name	First Name
    CO./Org	Company
    EDSNET ID/Peregrine ID	Job Title
    COE Area / Location	Business Address
    COE / Office Telephone #	Business Phone
    Mobile / Pager	Mobile Phone
    Email Address	Email

11. Once the mapping is completed, click OK and then Finish to start the import.
    

After it completes, you should now see the NG Team Contact List category in your Outlook contacts list.

The next time an updated NG Team Contact List.xls file is sent out, you'll simply need to delete the entire NG Team Contact List category from your contact list before starting the above steps.