Every-day contact list management can become a nightmare when each person in an organisation has a mobile phone, a laptop and desktop pc. Furthermore most people now use a range of email software, on-line contacts software, internet telephony and so on. Individuals must have the discipline to retain the distinction between personal and company contacts.
For an organisation to maintain a consistent list of contacts has therefore become a real challenge. This is particularly acute within a small business since they also tend to have less solid IT arrangements and to employ associates as well as their own staff.
Click on the titles on either side to see notes about this.
Every-day contact list management can become a nightmare when each person in an organisation has a mobile phone, a laptop and desktop pc. Furthermore most people now use a range of email software, on-line contacts software, internet telephony and so on. Individuals must have the discipline to retain the distinction between personal and company contacts.
For an organisation to maintain a consistent list of contacts has therefore become a real challenge. This is particularly acute within a small business since they also tend to have less solid IT arrangements and to employ associates as well as their own staff.
Click on the titles on either side to see notes about this.
The company contacts master database is moved from a personal, shared list on the two machines belonging to the two directors. This move was to allow for an administrator to access company contacts and to help protect the data from loss by theft, damage or deletion.
A descision is made to centralise the data in a common on-line repository. Each person with access to that data is given a log-in to the on-line resource.
The problem now shifts from one thing to another since each of the users now needs to synchronise their 'local' copy of the data to the remote.
Local copies comprise: Mail applications, Address Books, Mobile Phones and mail-shot tools.
Mozilla Thunderbird is selected as the standard mail package since it can import and export to a range of formats that are compatible with many common applications. Furthermore the standard Contact format is not too big or small and is suitable for company usage.
ARIA is used as the central database as it has multi-user log-in capability, is on-line and is also used for other things such as running the web site and displaying the company catalogue.
In order to populate each user's installation of Thunderbird a download from ARIA in LDIF format will be used and imported. All ok so far. Now each user then modifies their contacts within Thunderbird.
To update ARIA each user then exports from Thunderbird in LDIF format and uploads the file to ARIA.
ARIA then checks through the contacts database and updates or adds the contact based on the contact's display name. Strictly speaking this synchronisation should be handled using a unique identifier however if a contact changes name it is often better to then provide a 'duplicate' record on the central database so that other user's who may choose to use the old name are not over-ridden.
ARIA maps 35 out of 37 columns.
Extension for Plaxo sync available.
Imports: LDIF, .tab, .csv, .txt, Eudora
Exports: ldi, ldif, csv, tab, txt
ARIA maps 31 out of 92 columns
Import VCards, ACT, CSV, Lotus, MS Office, Outlook Express, Personal Address Book, Schedule Plus, Tab Separated Text.
Export to CSV, MS Office, .pst, Tab formats.
Import from Outlook Express, Eudora, Apple Mail, Nescape 4, Claris, 'now'. Tab and Comma Delimited Text Files.
Export to Tab-delimited text file.
Used (in this context) for displaying, editing and storing contacts prior to using Word's 'mail merge' function or for viewing and preparing CSV files.
By linking a word processor document to a 'data source' the document can be used to generate a 'mail merge'. This means that data from an address book, spreadsheet or database can be used to create letters to, for example, a client list. The process is somewhat fiddly however it is possible to generate printed or electronic documents in this way.
Simple mail program Integrated with the Mac address book. Import LDIF, VCard and Text Files. Exports VCards only. ARIA Vcards based on Mail VCard.
Any Computer that can access the internet can be used to manage contacts. Normally folk do not carry their email settings around - they use web mail. Most professionals will use an email client (such as Outlook) and therefore only manage mail and contacts on their own computer. With ARIA at tlease the contacts can be accessed from any machine. Furthermore if a membership is arranged then access to contact information can be shared selectively by project group.
Convenience and low cost calls through the personal computer has arrived. Implicit in this is the management of contact details. In Windows Skype imports contacts from Outlook, on the mac Skype imports from the mac address book. Contact export is not available
Outlook 2000/XP/2002/2003 CSV Outlook Express 5.5/6.x CSV Netscape LDIF Palm Win CSV Palm Mac TSV/TAB VCard CSV Yahoo! CSV Web-based, cross platform.
The 'Business Card' format is used for Bluetooth contact exchange.
Nokia: ~~.
Sony Ericsson: ~~.
Contacts are almost never displayed on a web site, however ARIA is often used to express information that has a relationship to a contacts list. Synchronisation is not limited to Contacts and most applications now run parallel services for Calendar, To Do and Notes information. Apple provide a .mac account and there are other integrated on-line data storage methods on the market.
Contacts can be viewed and edited, related to human resources, orders, membership and so on. VCards can be imported and exported either singly or as a group. LDIF and CSV files can be uploaded and inserted / update the contacts database. Export of Contact data to LDIF and CSV are soon to follow. Contact details are stored broadly in line with Thunderbird.
ARIA is not intended as a personal computer application, however if the computer can be configured as a web server using software such as Apache, IIS and php it can be used. This then requires some kind of synchronisation both of version control and data. ARIA 3.9 has database schema sync however it is not fully automated. Data synchronisation is limited to crude manual methods envolving SQL.
This solution has to be the ultimate in personal contact information control. iSync can control contacts stored on your .mac account, your phone and your address book. Simplicity of operation is enhanced by the use of Bluetooth