Export contacts from ACT, Salesforce, Outlook, QuickBooks, etc.

Question

What API's / SDK's / software tools are available to export contacts from popular CRM and accounting packages?

What I'd like to do is offer an address book in my web application and have a button that says "Upload your contacts from X". The user could then click a few buttons and his contacts would be automagically uploaded from X.

A company called Plaxo has a widget that does exactly what I am looking for, BUT:

1. They only support a limited number of data sources (I am most interested in ACT, Salesforce, Outlook, and QuickBooks), and
2. They only support e-mail addresses. I am most interested in street addresses ("123 Main St, Anywhere, CA, 90123")

A company called Constant Contact has various tools for popular CRM packages, such as ACT, QuickBooks, and Salesforce. These tools upload contacts into their Constant Contact web application. When you login to Constant Contact, click on "Contacts" and click on "Import Tools," you get presented with a number of tools. Most require a download. This is basically what I want for my web app.

Answer 1

One option, instead of integrating with the various API/SDKs would be to create a generic import facility, this could be a csv format that has a specific specification or include a mapping to tool to match columns with fields. This way you can use the Export features of the various 3rd party applications.

Another, possibly more limiting, idea would be to look at only integrating with Outlook (or other ubiquitous systems on other platforms) where syncing to Outlook is probably already built in to those other applications?

Answer 2

There is a company called CloudSponge, but they seem just like the Plaxo widget in that they are geared only for export of e-mail addresses from the most popular e-mail clients. They do not have support for Quickbooks or ACT or Salesforce.