Outlook 2000 in a Nutshell

Importing Data

There are two rules for importing data:

Rule #1: Expect problems.

Rule #2: Plan for problems.

If this sounds a little scary, it should. Data is a precious commodity. Unfortunately, this fact is all too often lost on people until something goes wrong and they are forced to enter 1000 records from scratch. And unless you’re dealing with data that was exported from an identical version of the same software you use, importing data can be a hit and miss venture. Fortunately, we have some suggestions that should keep you from getting into serious trouble, and may even make the process reasonably painless:

• Never import data into your working information store. Create a new PST file for the task and use this structure to experiment (see Chapter 13 for details on working with multiple information stores). When you have the data imported in all the proper fields, move (or copy) it from the test PST to your working PST.

  This solves two problems. First, if something goes wrong you’re not jeopardizing any existing data (or data structures). Second, once you’re satisfied you can easily move the data from one PST to another, which is about as safe and seamless as it comes.

• If you’re bringing data in from a format foreign to Outlook (which is just about anything other than a PST), take the time to look carefully at the structure of the import file. If it’s comma- or tab-delimited, you can view it in Notepad or WordPad. If it’s a database file, track down a freeware file viewer on the ...