VB, VB.NET, Lotus Script: Script to copy address entries.

Question

I am looking for the possibility to copy all (backup) my address book entries into plain text, or CSV, or XLS from Lotus Notes mail client. My aim is to later copy these details into Outlook.

Is it possible. I haven't done lotus scripting before. But I am going through the reference links. If possible provide links or pointers for accomplishing this task.

I am using Lotus Notes 8.0.1.

Update: Is it possible to do this using VB or VB.NET? The language is not a constraint, as long as it is possible.

Answer 1

I haven't use Notes since version 5, but couldn't you just create a view of the items you want, then export the view?

Answer 2

No scripting needed.

If you are using Notes Mail via the client, your contacts are in a "Personal Address Book", not the mailfile itself. It is usually an icon on the notes workspace called "(yourname)'s address book on local". The filename is names.nsf.

Open this to the Contacts view. Do File>Export Contacts, and you can choose All/Selected contacts, All/Basic fields, file location, file name, and file type. You could even choose to export them as a vcard, which I believe would be easiest to import into Outlook's contacts.

Answer 3

If you need to do this on a lot of databases, or allow end-users to backup their contacts, you could use an Export to Excel script I wrote years ago into the address book.

Another easy way to export information from Lotus Notes without any programming is to create or find a view that has what you need, then select all, and choose Edit > Copy Selected As Table. Then just paste into Excel. I'm not sure if the command has changed in version 7 or 8, but it worked great in the 6.x versions.

Answer 4

I am able to send mails from VB using Lotus Client. I used the reference here IBM - Send mail using VB. Now I need to loop through the contacts in the same place and back them up.