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Exporting Outlook Notes to CSV
Posted on 2016-08-29
When I export outlook notes to CSV files and open them in Excel the notes are not staying in the column and proper field.
They are being appended to the end of a list of contacts. (which is impossible to then recreate without tons of time)
I have well over 6000 contacts all with several lines of notes (in the open contact notes field) where I put the date of the event and usually some note, some event, etc.
The purpose of the excel is to sort them into particular groups, so that I as manager can monitor last contact on key accounts etc.
If someone knows an easy way to get these to line up correctly let me know.
They are being appended to the end of a list of contacts. (which is impossible to then recreate without tons of time)
I have well over 6000 contacts all with several lines of notes (in the open contact notes field) where I put the date of the event and usually some note, some event, etc.
The purpose of the excel is to sort them into particular groups, so that I as manager can monitor last contact on key accounts etc.
If someone knows an easy way to get these to line up correctly let me know.
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5 Comments
Active 2 days ago
When you open them in Excel, all they being separated out into individual columns? In not, you may need to use the text to columns wizard to break them out properly.
Perhaps you can help show the problem by attaching a small sample of the CSV and a sample XLS or picture of how they are appearing in Excel.
Perhaps you can help show the problem by attaching a small sample of the CSV and a sample XLS or picture of how they are appearing in Excel.
Inside an Outlook contact there is a note section (an open whiteboard for notes)
Normally I use these to record contacts and various notes of the contacts.
It makes the entire client information more transportable so I can send to those I manage, and keep sort of a running record of items done and discussed etc.
So, that said, I found a plugin called CodeTwo Outlook Export that allowed me to export with characters limited to 256.
This allowed me to have at least the last 256 characters, which was acceptable for my current need, but not necessarily if I wanted to export to a file for record keeping, or another reason requiring a more complete history of these notes.
I believe it may be because these notes have carriage returns, perhaps other images, links or other things which for some reason is somehow not exporting. When you open a .csv file in excel (which is really the better way so you can see everything, sort, etc, and again transport mass info) you can see some of the notes inserted in their proper column but other notes pertaining to that contact were showing 50 rows down by themselves in individual records, and of course not showing any relation to the contact.
Since these are private files I could not post the document but I show in the attachment a small excerpt .jpg so you can see that in this case after 162 normal listings a series of notes which runs to about row 4200 before there are more correctly supported records. I presume these are overflows of the notes, but you could imagine the work involved in moving these to an appropriate field for each listing. (and finding only by the notes which record they might apply to.) Really impractical. Anyway I have a bandaid now with the plugin, but would like to know if someone has a solution that can allow an export of ALL the information from within the notes window. (AGAIN of a contact)
Normally I use these to record contacts and various notes of the contacts.
It makes the entire client information more transportable so I can send to those I manage, and keep sort of a running record of items done and discussed etc.
So, that said, I found a plugin called CodeTwo Outlook Export that allowed me to export with characters limited to 256.
This allowed me to have at least the last 256 characters, which was acceptable for my current need, but not necessarily if I wanted to export to a file for record keeping, or another reason requiring a more complete history of these notes.
I believe it may be because these notes have carriage returns, perhaps other images, links or other things which for some reason is somehow not exporting. When you open a .csv file in excel (which is really the better way so you can see everything, sort, etc, and again transport mass info) you can see some of the notes inserted in their proper column but other notes pertaining to that contact were showing 50 rows down by themselves in individual records, and of course not showing any relation to the contact.
Since these are private files I could not post the document but I show in the attachment a small excerpt .jpg so you can see that in this case after 162 normal listings a series of notes which runs to about row 4200 before there are more correctly supported records. I presume these are overflows of the notes, but you could imagine the work involved in moving these to an appropriate field for each listing. (and finding only by the notes which record they might apply to.) Really impractical. Anyway I have a bandaid now with the plugin, but would like to know if someone has a solution that can allow an export of ALL the information from within the notes window. (AGAIN of a contact)
Active today
The field called Notes in the interface is called Body in VBA code (only one of many such confusing discrepancies). Here is some code that imports data from various ContactItem fields into an Access table; the Notes field is a Memo field, to accommodate large amounts of data:
The Access table can then be exported to a comma-delimited file, as in this code:
You could probably combine these two procedures into one, if you wish.
Public Sub ImportStandardContacts()
'Created by Helen Feddema 17-Dec-2011
'Last modified by Helen Feddema 25-Jan-2012
On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
Set rst = CurrentDb.OpenRecordset("tblContacts", _
dbOpenDynaset)
Set appOutlook = GetObject(, "Outlook.Application")
Set nms = appOutlook.GetNamespace("MAPI")
SelectContactsFolder:
On Error Resume Next
Set fldContacts = nms.PickFolder
If fldContacts Is Nothing Then
GoTo ErrorHandlerExit
ElseIf fldContacts.DefaultItemType <> olContactItem Then
strPrompt = "Please select a Contacts folder"
strTitle = "Select folder"
MsgBox prompt:=strPrompt, _
Buttons:=vbExclamation + vbOKOnly, _
Title:=strTitle
GoTo SelectContactsFolder
End If
On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
strTitle = "Question"
strPrompt = "Automatically overwrite duplicates (Yes) or ask for each duplicate (No)?"
intResult = MsgBox(prompt:=strPrompt, _
Buttons:=vbQuestion + vbYesNo, _
Title:=strTitle)
intNewCount = 0
intUpdateCount = 0
For Each itm In fldContacts.Items
If itm.Class = olContact Then
Set con = itm
'Determine whether contact is already in tblContacts
strFirstName = con.FirstName
strLastName = con.LastName
strFullName = strFirstName & " " & strLastName
strSearch = "[FirstName] = " & Chr(39) & strFirstName _
& Chr(39) & " And [LastName] = " & Chr(39) _
& strLastName & Chr(39)
Debug.Print "Search string: " & strSearch
rst.FindFirst strSearch
Debug.Print "Notes: " & con.Body
If rst.NoMatch = True Then
'Add contact as a new record
rst.AddNew
rst![FirstName] = con.FirstName
rst![LastName] = con.LastName
rst![Salutation] = con.NickName
rst![StreetAddress] = con.BusinessAddressStreet
rst![City] = con.BusinessAddressCity
rst![StateOrProvince] = con.BusinessAddressState
rst![PostalCode] = con.BusinessAddressPostalCode
rst![Country] = con.BusinessAddressCountry
rst![CompanyName] = con.CompanyName
rst![JobTitle] = con.JobTitle
rst![WorkPhone] = con.BusinessTelephoneNumber
rst![MobilePhone] = con.MobileTelephoneNumber
rst![FaxNumber] = con.BusinessFaxNumber
rst![EmailName] = con.Email1Address
rst![Notes] = con.Body
rst.Update
intNewCount = intNewCount + 1
Else
If intResult = vbYes Then
rst.Edit
rst![FirstName] = con.FirstName
rst![LastName] = con.LastName
rst![Salutation] = con.NickName
rst![StreetAddress] = con.BusinessAddressStreet
rst![City] = con.BusinessAddressCity
rst![StateOrProvince] = con.BusinessAddressState
rst![PostalCode] = con.BusinessAddressPostalCode
rst![Country] = con.BusinessAddressCountry
rst![CompanyName] = con.CompanyName
rst![JobTitle] = con.JobTitle
rst![WorkPhone] = con.BusinessTelephoneNumber
rst![MobilePhone] = con.MobileTelephoneNumber
rst![FaxNumber] = con.BusinessFaxNumber
rst![EmailName] = con.Email1Address
rst![Notes] = con.Body
rst.Update
intUpdateCount = intUpdateCount + 1
ElseIf intResult = vbNo Then
strTitle = "Duplicate contact"
strPrompt = strFullName & " is already in tblContacts; " _
& "overwrite record with data from Outlook?"
intReturn = MsgBox(prompt:=strPrompt, _
Buttons:=vbQuestion + vbYesNo, _
Title:=strTitle)
If intReturn = vbYes Then
rst.Edit
rst![FirstName] = con.FirstName
rst![LastName] = con.LastName
rst![Salutation] = con.NickName
rst![StreetAddress] = con.BusinessAddressStreet
rst![City] = con.BusinessAddressCity
rst![StateOrProvince] = con.BusinessAddressState
rst![PostalCode] = con.BusinessAddressPostalCode
rst![Country] = con.BusinessAddressCountry
rst![CompanyName] = con.CompanyName
rst![JobTitle] = con.JobTitle
rst![WorkPhone] = con.BusinessTelephoneNumber
rst![MobilePhone] = con.MobileTelephoneNumber
rst![FaxNumber] = con.BusinessFaxNumber
rst![EmailName] = con.Email1Address
rst.Update
intUpdateCount = intUpdateCount + 1
Else
GoTo NextItem
End If
End If
End If
End If
NextItem:
Next itm
Debug.Print "New count: " & intNewCount
Debug.Print "Update count: " & intUpdateCount
If intNewCount = 0 Then
If intUpdateCount = 0 Then
strPrompt = "No contacts added or updated"
ElseIf intUpdateCount = 1 Then
strPrompt = "No contacts added; 1 contact updated"
ElseIf intUpdateCount > 1 Then
strPrompt = "No contacts added; " & CStr(intUpdateCount) _
& " contacts updated"
End If
ElseIf intNewCount = 1 Then
If intUpdateCount = 1 Then
strPrompt = "1 contact added; 1 contact updated"
ElseIf intUpdateCount > 1 Then
strPrompt = "1 contact added; " & CStr(intUpdateCount) _
& " contacts updated"
End If
ElseIf intNewCount > 1 Then
If intUpdateCount = 1 Then
strPrompt = CStr(intNewCount) & " contacts added; " _
& "1 contact updated"
ElseIf intUpdateCount > 1 Then
strPrompt = CStr(intNewCount) & " contacts added; " _
& CStr(intUpdateCount) & " contacts updated"
End If
End If
strTitle = "Import done"
MsgBox prompt:=strPrompt, _
Buttons:=vbInformation + vbOKOnly, _
Title:=strTitle
ErrorHandlerExit:
Exit Sub
ErrorHandler:
'Outlook is not running; open Outlook with CreateObject
If Err.Number = 429 Then
Set appOutlook = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
Resume Next
Else
MsgBox "Error No: " & Err.Number _
& " in ImportStandardContacts procedure; " _
& "Description: " & Err.Description
Resume ErrorHandlerExit
End If
End Sub
The Access table can then be exported to a comma-delimited file, as in this code:
Public Sub ExportToCSV()
'Created by Helen Feddema 3-Sep-2016
'Last modified by Helen Feddema 3-Sep-2016
On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
Dim strTable As String
Dim strCSVFileAndPath As String
strTable = "tblContacts"
strCSVFileAndPath = "C:\Users\Helen Feddema Home\Documents\CSV Files\Contacts.csv"
DoCmd.TransferText transfertype:=acExportDelim, _
TableName:=strTable, _
FileName:=strCSVFileAndPath, _
hasfieldnames:=True
ErrorHandlerExit:
Exit Sub
ErrorHandler:
MsgBox "Error No: " & Err.Number _
& " in ExportToCSV procedure; " _
& "Description: " & Err.Description
Resume ErrorHandlerExit
End Sub
You could probably combine these two procedures into one, if you wish.
Active 4 days ago
No comment has been added to this question in more than 21 days, so it is now classified as abandoned.
I have recommended this question be closed as follows:
Accept: Helen_Feddema (https:#a41782975)
If you feel this question should be closed differently, post an objection and the moderators will review all objections and close it as they feel fit. If no one objects, this question will be closed automatically the way described above.
frankhelk
Experts-Exchange Cleanup Volunteer
I have recommended this question be closed as follows:
Accept: Helen_Feddema (https:#a41782975)
If you feel this question should be closed differently, post an objection and the moderators will review all objections and close it as they feel fit. If no one objects, this question will be closed automatically the way described above.
frankhelk
Experts-Exchange Cleanup Volunteer
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