Digital Voice and Importing Contacts files

[globe1nh]

Does anyone have experience of importing a contacts file to their BT SH2?  I've just got BT DV and so far it seems good.  One problem I have is the import function.  I exported a few contacts from my existing contacts list to a .vcf file (the only format that the SH 2 will import) and imported it into the SH2 - so far so good.  I then checked my DV handset, and the contacts showed up in the address book - even better.  However when I went ahead and imported a second file containing additional contacts this overwrote the first set - so it seems I need to export all my existing contacts to a single .vcf file and import that.

That's annoying but could be dealt with by maintaining my existing list and periodically updating it.  Unfortunately that's not the only problem.  Importing the .vcf file doesn't just over-write the contacts previously imported - it also overwrites any contacts you may have added manually on the phone itself.

Am I missing something here or is this function just very poorly implemented?  Having the ability to hold 500 contacts but no way of managing them more efficiently than this is pretty disappointing...

[imjolly]

Importing contact using vcf file is normally a one off hence why the phone deletes all existing contacts and replaces with contacts in vcf file. Just a matter of making sure all your contacts are included in existing device before creating the vcf file and then just add others as and when you need

[VeteranISPUser]

Hi @globe1nh 

The key is to have one central address book. In my case it is the Office365 contact list. This worked perfectly with my iPhone and old BT Premium phone which were synced by Bluetooth. I have now moved over to DV phones so a bit of a rigmarole but I can easily import them into the SH2 anytime the list updates. The rigmarole (free) is export to .csv in Outlook, import to Gmail contacts, export to .vcf and import to SH2. It sounds a lot of work but it is quick and easy for hundreds of contacts.

[globe1nh]

Yes I understand what I need to do to make it work - I already have my Office 36/Exchange, Gmail/Google and iCloud contacts all synchronised, and I could easily export from Gmail as .vcf and import into the SH2 hub.  However I have well over 1000 contacts, and for my landline I only need a sub-set of those (personal, family & friends etc.).  My Gmail contact list is sub-divided into "labels", but it will only export one "label" at a time, or alternatively I have to go through my entire list and pick each individual contact I want to save (and unfortunately the "all contacts" list doesn't allow sorting by "label".

I think my Mac includes a Terminal command that can merge multiple .vcf files (and there are some applications out there that will also do this) so I can just export the contacts I need by "label", merge them and upload the resulting file.

Would be nice if there was a simple way of syncing files between the Mac and the SH2...

[globe1nh]

Thanks for the help on this.  I managed to pull together a fix that works for me.  My primary list is in Gmail contacts, which is also synchronised with my Office 365/Exchange and iCloud contacts.  I have three specific contact groups ("labels") in my Gmail contacts that I want to transfer to my DV handsets.   I can export these three groups  as .vcf files to a new folder on my Mac desktop.  Then I open Terminal on that folder and use the command line cat *.vcf > combinedfile.vcf which combines my three .vcf files (or however many there are in the folder) into a single .vcf file (can be named anything, doesn't have to be "combinedfile").  Then I can import the combinedfile.vcf into BT SH2.

I think there's a similar command option for Windows.

[DavidM]

Thanks for posting your solution @globe1nh . It's very much appreciated and I'm sure the community will benefit from this.

Kudos to you.

Cheers

David

[globe1nh]

Thanks for that.  Unfortunately, although the process I described works perfectly it has unearthed another problem.  I travel a lot, and all of my contacts list 'phone numbers are preceded by "+" and the appropriate country code.  The .vcf file imports into the SH2 OK but the transfer to the handsets strips out the "+" prefix, and the result is that whatever number I call only gets me a BT message that DV needs me to include the local area code.

So despite the import facility it seems I will still have to manually edit a copy of my 'phone list so that my "DV version" has the "00" prefix in place of the "+".  That would be a lot easier if the SH2 would import .csv files.  Has anyone else had this issue, and (hopefully) found a fix?

[globe1nh]

@VeteranISPUser 

I managed to export my three Contact lists and combine them into a single VCF.  You may have seen a further post where I explained that the Contacts wouldn't work once transferred from the hub to the handset because in my original contacts lists I have all phone numbers with the International prefix "+" and country code, but the handset strips out the "+" leaving an invalid number.  I've now fixed this by using a simple find and replace in a txt editor  -  all "+" symbols replaced with the UK international dialling prefix "00".

So all the contacts I need are now in my DV handsets and work fine.  Slight disappointment is that on the 'phone the contacts search function only appears to work starting with the first letter of the first name and building from there.  Ideally it would allow you to match a string anywhere within the entry, or at least allow the list to display either as [First Name, Last Name] or [Last Name, First Name] (or maybe I've missed something?)

If  the contacts list on the handset can accommodate up to 500 entries it should have a more sophisticated interface...