RE: www.davidellisrealtor.com

Hi,

I know REW can convert leads into Top Producer, but I'm wondering...is it possible to convert leads into MS Outlook? If so, what would the cost be?

Thanks!

Dave Ellis

Hi Dave,

This is not something that we've done before so I really do not know if it's possible. We could attach a vCard to the lead emails?

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Aaron
Programming
Real Estate Webmasters

Thanks Aaron,

I'm trying to figure out what would work best...perhaps you have a suggestion. I'm currently using Outlook's Calendar and contact management to organize my leads, call back times, etc. Do you know of a good calendar that interfaces well with REW2? Would Top Producer be a good option?

Any help you can provide would be appreciated. Thanks again...

Dave

Hi Dave,

We do not currently interface with any calender. And I am not sure about Top Producer - I have never used it - Perhaps you should schedule a call with sales to discuss.

Thank you,

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Aaron
Programming
Real Estate Webmasters

Thanks for the response, Aaron. I already discussed with Danielle. I'll try to track down Morgan...

Thanks!

Dave

Outlook 2003 and later can import contacts from csv files, ACT!, Excel, and many other formats. If you have REW CMS2, then in your Lead Management area, you should have a "Download CSV" tab. That will download your leads and allow you to open them in Excel.

Once you have them in Excel, you can change the column headings in the file to match what Outlook needs. To figure that out, you may need to do an export of your current contacts from Outlook to csv or xls format and see what it creates, since those headings are also what it expects to find in in import file. This step avoids having to use the Outlook "Map Custom Fields" function that the Outlook import process triggers for you by default. If you are pretty good with Excel, you can create a macro that would change all of the column headings for you each time you need to do that, or simply save the top row in a separate spreadsheet once you have all of the column headings renamed as you prefer, and copy/paste that row into the top row of the CMS export file each time before you import to Outlook. I suggest that you save the file as an Excel .xls file before importing that to Outlook, since Outlook doesn't seem to like the csv file format the REW CMS creates for some reason.

There are fields in the CMS leads export file that do not correspond directly to any Outlook field. For example, for "Agent" in the export file, you may want to import to Outlook as "Manager Name". Other fields you may want to import into the various Outlook "User" fields.

The issue with any Outlook import process is that is is dumb. That is, it will replace anything already in Outlook for that contact with whatever comes in from the import file. So you must be diligent in making any changes in your CMS backend before exporting the leads for Outlook.

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Ron Goodman, GRI, REALTOR®
Prudential Colorado Real Estate
Denver Colorado Real Estate: Highlands Ranch, Parker, Littleton, Castle Rock
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