Many businesses have all their customer and supplier contact information stored in a CRM or ERP system, which can manage all contacts. However, communication usually doesn’t happen in ERP or CRM system applications, but in emails.
But how can you import your contacts from the system to your Outlook Exchange? Read on as I show you how you cam
Importing Contacts to Your Exchange Global Address List
Do you want to add contacts to your Exchange Global Address List to Outlook Contacts? It’s actually straightforward. You can opt to import a .csv file to Outlook Exchange, song Windows PowerShell, which is quick and free.
How about trying to export your GAL addresses to make it accessible to all systems?
All you need to do is to open your Address Book and select GAL contacts. Afterward, open the File menu and select “Add to Contacts.” This allows you to create copies of your GAL contacts to Outlook’s Contacts folder.
If you want more convenience and to weed out any duplicate contacts, you can check the “Check For Duplicates,” which is enabled in Options or in People (from Contacts in the older version of Outlook).
Outlook will check if there are contacts already in your GAL Contacts folder. If you already have a Social Connector enabled with the updated GAL version of Contacts, then the contact will be updated, too.
But if you have the older version of Outlook, then the Exchange x.400 address will be used. Because of this, you’ll have to use the methods I’ll mention below when exporting SMTP addresses.
1. PAB + Outlook Express Method
The Add to Contacts command has been in Outlook a few versions ago. But if you have a very old version of Outlook, here is a way to add GAL contacts to Outlook.
- When you’re on Outlook, select the Address Book button, displaying your Address Book dialog window. Look under the “Show Names from the…” button and select Personal Address Book.
- Create a new Personal Address Book, which is named GALTransfer.pab and right-click on the Personal Address Book, which is in the Show Names from the list. Select Properties and enter a new path, confirming it.
- In the Address Book dialog box, which is under “Show Names from the,” select the Global Address List.
- Hold down your Ctrl key, clicking on every name you’d like to place on your GAL PAB. When selecting all names, select the first name on the list and scroll down to the last name, holding down the Shift key and clicking the last name.
- Right-click on your selected names and choose “Add to Personal Address Book.” Now, open Outlook Express. For those with names in the OE address already, you can expert and delete them to avoid getting it mixed with GAL.
- Go to File-Import-Address Book. In the Address Book Import Tool dialog window, click on the Microsoft Exchange Personal Address Book, selecting Import afterward. This will put all SMTP addresses on GAL entries, which were in your PAB in the Windows Address Book from OE.
- Return to Outlook and you can repeat step 2, this time creating. New PAB filed renamed as GALSMTP.pab. You can use OE’s File-Import and Export function, importing addresses from OE to PAB.
Once you’re done doing this, your GALSMTP.pab file will have all the names with the SMTP addresses of contacts selected from GAL doing Step 4. However, it won’t have other GAL details, like the phone number.
If you require that information besides the simple SMTP addresses, you’ll have to do the other methods.
Another thing you can do is to skip the steps 9-11. You can simply select File-Export-Address Book in the Outlook Express for exporting your GAL address to comma-delimited .csv files, so most email programs can import to their address books.
2. Using the Right Tools
If you are unable to do the methods mentioned above, you can try using helpful tools such as SyncGal. These tools will be able to synchronize your address books and make it easier to access your contacts everywhere you go.
Such tools can import your contacts to various SRM or ERP systems. Fortunately, most of these tools (such as the SyncGal I mentioned) are free and easy to use.
Wrapping It Up
When you want to import contacts from your CRM or ERP system to your Global Address List, it’s pretty easy, especially with the right tools. I highly recommend that you invest in the newer version of Outlook before doing this, so you won’t need to spend too much time or money on expensive software. Just remember to back your data up just in case of any issues!
So use any of these methods or tools to access all your contacts on-the-go now.