Posts Tagged ‘Blackberry’

10 Behaviors of Highly-Effective Small Business Technology (Part 1)

I've read numerous articles about "lessons" or "must-haves" for small business IT. I've boiled them all down into my 10 Behaviors of Highly-Effective Small Business Technology.

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Contacts, Google, and Blackberry – Oh My!

Contact... get it?

I regularly check the analytics on my site to see what Google searches bring you my way!   Over the past few days, I’ve noticed an upward trend in folks that appear to be searching for how to manage their contacts (integrating with Google and syncing with Blackberry).  Fortunately, this is a relatively easy process!   There are a number of different ways you can tackle this, but this article outlines the quickest way I can think of to accomplish this.

Note: If you’re trying to do the opposite of this article, eHow has an article describing how to export your Google Contacts for use elsewhere.

Sync your Desktop Contacts to Google:

The first step is to get all your current contacts up to Google.  To do this, you’ll export your contacts from your current email program and then import them into Google.

It depends on your desktop email program, but generally all of these allow you to Export to a CSV (comma separated values) file.   Here are tutorials for popular email programs:

• Export from Outlook (eHow)
• Export from Eudora (eHow)
• Export from Thunderbird and a few other programs (eHow)

One you have your contacts exported, go to your Google Contacts.  Click on the “Import” link.  Click “Choose File” and browse to the CSV file containing your exported contacts.  Once you select it, it will be listed on the site and you can click “Import”.

Sync your Blackberry Contacts to Google:

On your Blackberry, browse over to the Google Sync for Mobile website.  Download the Sync client for Blackberry and install it.  Once you launch the sync client on your Blackberry, you’ll be prompted for your Gmail address and password.  After entering the information, you’ll be prompted as to whether you wish to sync “Contacts” and/or “Calendar” items. Ensure you select “Contacts” and set the time for “When to Sync.”

Note: Only select Calendar if you’ve made the preparations to ensure you won’t have duplicated items.  Follow my article on How to Sync Google Calendar.

Once you’ve configured the options for Google Sync, you can click the Blackberry button and select “Sync Now”.  This will push all the contacts on your Blackberry to Google.

Cleanup Duplicate Contacts:

Log-in to your Google Contacts.  If you notice any duplicates, put a check mark beside both contacts (to select them both). On the right side you’ll see the option to “Merge these contacts”. Select this link and Google will attempt to combine the information appropriately.  You can edit the new merged contact as you would like, then click “Save” to save your changes.

Note: If you’ve configured automatic syncing in the Google Sync for Mobile client (on your Blackberry), your Blackberry will pick up the changes to the contact list and you’ll be ready to go the next time the sync occurs.

If you have any questions or need clarification on any of this, feel free to Contact Me!  This process is truly easier to do than it sounds.

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