Need to sync contacts in Outlook or csv to iPhone and get groups/categories

[cashonly]

I am trying out how to best sync my contacts.

I have most of my contacts in an Excel SS, so it's easy for me to export them into a csv format with whatever headers are needed. I also have some contacts in Outlook. I create the csv file and import it into Outlook fine, with what I want as "groups" in categories. I have multiple categories/groups per contact. Unfortunately, it looks like these won't become groups on the iPhone.

I could use Google contacts, but while I can import into a single specific group, if I were to import the same items into a different group each time, I'm thinking I'd end up with duplicates.

And I'm open to any web or PC-based contact manager that can handle importing csv files and import multiple groups per contact. Then, I just need to get it into the iPhone with that group info intact.

Any suggestions for an app or method?

 

[TLewis]

Not sure what you mean.

I first imported my contacts into outlook, and then organized them into outlook contact folders. If you sync these folders to MobileMe, and then access MobileMe contacts from the iPhone, you get contact groups (each outlook folder maps onto a MM contact group with the same name). I believe that nested folders don't work, though.

It's the one thing that keeps me on MobileMe. If Google ever implemented proper contact group mapping on the iPhone, I'd dump Apple.

 

[cashonly]

Not sure what you mean.

I first imported my contacts into outlook, and then organized them into outlook contact folders. If you sync these folders to MobileMe, and then access MobileMe contacts from the iPhone, you get contact groups (each outlook folder maps onto a MM contact group with the same name). I believe that nested folders don't work, though.

It's the one thing that keeps me on MobileMe. If Google ever implemented proper contact group mapping on the iPhone, I'd dump Apple.

With that, can you have the same contact in multiple groups?

 

[TLewis]

With that, can you have the same contact in multiple groups?

I think so, but not in the way that you'd want: I think you can only do that as separate, non-synchronized entries (a "different contact" that just happens to have the same entries as another contact). Sucky, but I don't think that'll ever get fixed, desirable as it may be.

Also, note that MobileMe's outlook sync doesn't support all of the fields (example: the "iPhone" phone number field doesn't get sync'd to outlook, which blows chunks for backup ...).