Export Outreach Activities for import to Outlook Calendars

Exporting calendar data to Outlook provides a powerful way to get a great deal of Salesforce data into an Outlook calendar.  A default export is available, but the options for display and filtering are flexible.  If you would like additional information in your calendar export or need help filtering for the correct data, please submit a request to ilractivityform@cornell.edu.

This process assumes you have already established a calendar to receive the events from Salesforce.  You can do this either by creating a team calendar (contact ILRTS for details) or, if just for your own use, right-click on your calendar under "My Calendars" on the left side of the calendar page in Outlook and select "New Calendar".

Exporting the default calendar data is a 5-step process:

1. Filter the report
2. Export the data as a CSV
3. Briefly open the CSV in Excel and save it again to convert to Outlook format
4. Delete previous imported data (to avoid duplication)
5. Import the data to Outlook

Notes:

• In the default export, fields are named in such a way that they are automatically mapped in Outlook, but for a custom export, there may be a 5th step of telling Outlook which fields should be displayed.
• Salesforce's CSV export is not compatible with Outlook but a quick solution is to open in Excel and save the file, which converts it to the proper format.

This process is covered in detail below:

1. Set the filtering for the calendar export report  
   1. In Salesforce, in the search bar at the top of any page, type "Outreach Activities for Outlook": 
   2. In the "Reports" section of the search results, at the top of the page, click the link for the report called "Outreach Activities for Outlook". This will open the report.  By default this report shows all Outreach activities in all departments of all formats and all dates, both past and present. You will want to filter this as shown in the next step.
   3. While viewing the report, click the filter icon at the upper right: 
2. Export from Salesforce
   1. Click the down-arrow next to "Edit" at upper right and choose "Export": 
   2. 
   3. Click "Details Only"
   4. Select "Comma Delimited .csv".  Note that this is NOT the default, which "Excel Format xls"
   5. Click "Export". The file will be exported to your computer, commonly to your Downloads folder
   6. 
3. Convert the spreadsheet to Outlook format
   1. Open the file
   2. Click the "File" menu
   3. Click "Save"
   4. Click "Yes"
   5. Close the spreadsheet
   6. Click "Don't Save"
4. Delete old data to avoid duplication of events with changed dates and times
   1. Open Outlook
   2. Switch so that you are viewing ONLY your target Calendar
   3. In the search box at upper left, type "imported from salesforce"
   4. 
   5. Select all the events found in that search
   6. Press the delete key
5. Import into Outlook
   1. Verify you are viewing your target Calendar
   2. Click the "File" menu
   3. Click "Open & Export" (in the blue area along the left margin, near the top)
   4. Click "Import/Export"
   5. Choose "Import from Another Program or File"
   6. Choose "Comma Separated Values"
   7. Click Browse and select the desired file
   8. Select the desired method of handling duplicates (usually "Do not import duplicate items")
   9. Click Next
   10. Select the target Outlook calendar to import to
   11. Click "Finish"

If you have difficulty accessing the information contained in this document or any document in this knowledgebase, please contact us at access-ilr@cornell.edu and we will assist you.