COMAND: import from Outlook issues

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dibblodocus

Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2010
Messages
50
Car
W204 C220 CDI Exec SE
OK, so I have COMAND with Linguatronic in a W204 (late 2010 model) Exec SE without telephone pre-wiring (Bluetooth only).

Importing contacts is straightforward enough using the receive vcards function and then firing them at the car from my phone via Bluetoth. It is also easy enough to export contacts from Outlook as vcards and put them on a memory card and transfer via the PCMCIA slot, in fact this is better in a way as it enables you to choose which contacts you want in the car more easily (I set up a category in Outlook called Mercedes and then assigned the contacts I want in the car to this category).

After the import, checking the address book reveals that the names, numbers and addresses from Outlook have all moved across no bother. However, whilst landline numbers categorised in Outlook as ‘business’ or ‘home’ are assigned as ‘work’ or ‘home’ in COMAND, mobile numbers are not. COMAND recognises them as ‘mobile’ numbers, but the subcategory of ‘work’ or ‘home’ is not populated.

Whilst this is not a problem if you want to call one of these mobile numbers using the COMAND controller or steering wheel controls, it is a problem for Linguatronic, which always prompts you for a choice of either ‘work’ or ‘home’. However, because the subcategories have not been assigned during the import from Outlook and all the mobile numbers are ‘unclassified’ Lingutronic simply says ‘no number stored, cancel’.

The other problem relates to imported addresses. Despite all the address fields being populated, COMAND refuses to navigate to them. You have to re-enter the address in navigation mode and then assign the resultant destination it to an address book entry. Why is this? All the relevant information is there already!

Has anyone else encountered these two problems? If so did you find a resolution to them? Software update needed MB?
Thanks all.
 
Hi,

I have some issues with this as well, but I can't even get the contacts from outlook to my car! I'm using an iPhone 3GS. I put all my outlook VCFs on a memory card but still no joy.

Did you transfer the contacts in the Telephone menus or somewhere else?
 
Hi,

I have some issues with this as well, but I can't even get the contacts from outlook to my car! I'm using an iPhone 3GS. I put all my outlook VCFs on a memory card but still no joy.

Did you transfer the contacts in the Telephone menus or somewhere else?

Either Outlook does not allow export of multiple contacts to vcards as one batch or I don’t know how to do it, but he method I used was something along the lines of this:

1. Select contacts in Outlook and use the Export to a file function to export the contacts as a .PST file.

2. Import the .PST file into software that does allow you to export a bulk load of contacts to vcard format (I used gmail’s contact manager for this as I have a gmail account). This results in one uber vcard file with all the contacts in it.

3. Transfer said file to the top level in the directory structure on a memory card that you can put in your PCMCIA slot (I used the compact flash card that I have all my MP3s on). Note it appears that the vcard file must NOT be located within a sub-directory on the card otherwise COMAND can’t see it and the import contacts from external source option is greyed out.

4. Put the card in the slot in the car, fire up COMAND, go to the address book (second menu option under telephone at the top of the screen). Once address bok is selected, go to the button in the bottom left corner of the screen (I forget what it is called) and click it. You then have an option called import from external source (or something like that). It then just sucks them in no bother.
 
However, whilst landline numbers categorised in Outlook as ‘business’ or ‘home’ are assigned as ‘work’ or ‘home’ in COMAND, mobile numbers are not. COMAND recognises them as ‘mobile’ numbers, but the subcategory of ‘work’ or ‘home’ is not populated.

Whilst this is not a problem if you want to call one of these mobile numbers using the COMAND controller or steering wheel controls, it is a problem for Linguatronic, which always prompts you for a choice of either ‘work’ or ‘home’. However, because the subcategories have not been assigned during the import from Outlook and all the mobile numbers are ‘unclassified’ Lingutronic simply says ‘no number stored, cancel’.
OK, the problem you describe with mobile numbers is not caused by COMAND but by Outlook.

The vCard tag structure allows for sub-categorisation of phone number types, such as WORK or HOME, but Outlook only does this for the numbers stored in the "Business" and "Home" phone number fields. There is only one Mobile phone number field in Outlook and in the Outlook-generated vCard file that has the tags TEL;CELL;VOICE while if it had come from (say) a Nokia vCard it would have TEL;CELL;WORK;VOICE or TEL;CELL;HOME;VOICE (BTW, it could also omit the the HOME or WORK tags if you hadn't specified a type).

Interestingly, as far as Linguatronic is concerned I have an example in my Nokia contacts list of a contact with 1 x Home landline, 1 x Work landline and 3 x uncategorised mobile numbers. When Linguatronic asks me to specify "home or work, mobile or landline" I respond "mobile" and it lists all three mobile numbers and asks me to specify which one I want by entry number.

A final tip: if you want to concatenate multiple vCard files into one single vCard file on a Windows machine, start a command prompt session (run cmd.exe) then navigate to the folder in which you stored the vCards and type the command:

copy *.vcf allcards.vcf

where allcards can be any valid filename.
 
Guys,

Thanks both for your help on this, you have saved me an hour at the dealer today and my company £500 from getting the media interface and iPhone cradle fitted.

I had all my separate vcards in a folder called contacts, which is obviously why they didn't work. Once I took them out of it and left them in the main directory they copied across instantly!

By the way, the one thing I do know is how to extract vcards quickly from outlook. Go to contacts, select around 30 at a time (too many will cause the temp folder to crash and not send an email), right click and select "Send Full Contact > In Internet Format (vCard).

This then brings up a blank email with all the vcards as attachments. Select the attachments and copy and paste them into whatever folder you want. Took me 2 mins like this to get all my contacts to the CF card.

Cheers!
 

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