How do I get a group of Outlook contacts into Highrise?

To get a batch of Outlook contacts into Highrise, you’ll need to export them from Outlook or Outlook Express as a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file and then import this file into Highrise. If you already have a CSV file generated from Outlook, you can skip ahead to the “import a CSV file into Highrise” part of this FAQ.

This video will show you how to get your contacts from Outlook Express into Highrise.

In order to get a batch of contacts from Outlook into Highrise, follow these steps: First, you need to export your contacts from Outlook to a CSV file. To do this, choose the “Import and Export Wizard” in Outlook and select “Export to a file.” Then click the “Next” button.

Select “Comma Separated Values (Windows)” as the file type. Click the “Next” button again.

Select the “Contacts” folder as the folder to export from. Click the “Next” button again.

Choose where to save the exported file. Click the “Next” button again.

Click the “Finish” button.

At this point, you’ve successfully exported a batch of contacts as a CSV file. Now you just need to import the CSV file into Highrise.

Go to Highrise and click the Contacts tab.

Next, click the “Import” link in the sidebar.

Choose the “Import from Outlook” link.

Choose the CSV file you exported from Outlook. Then click the “Upload and import” button.

When your file is done uploading, your Outlook contacts will appear in Highrise. If any mistakes are made, you can undo your import and start over.

How do I get a single Outlook contact into Highrise?

You can export a single Outlook contact as a vCard file and then import that file into Highrise (fyi, this is a slightly simpler process than the batch Outlook export described above).

1. Open your “Contacts” file.
2. Select the contacts you’d like to export in a vCard. (In Outlook, you cannot have more than one contact in a vCard. To export multiple contacts, follow these instructions.)
3. Click the “File” menu and choose “Save As” and in the “Save file as” select  (*.vcf).
4. Save the file to your desktop or another easily accessible folder, and head back into Highrise to import the vCard.
5. Follow the instructions on importing a vCard into Highrise.

(For more information, read this Microsoft article on how to export vCards from Outlook.)

At this point, you’ve successfully exported your contact as a vCard. From this point, just follow the instructions on importing a vCard into Highrise.

How do I get my Mac Address Book contacts into Highrise?

To get your Mac Address Book contacts into Highrise, you’ll need to export them as a vCard and then import the vCard into Highrise.

To create a single vCard with multiple contacts, select multiple entries in the Address Book window and drag them into the finder.

The multiple entries will be combined into one card.

You can also work with vCards using commands in Address Book’s "File" menu.

Once you’ve successfully exported your contact(s) as a vCard, just follow the instructions on importing a vCard into Highrise.

(For more information on exporting from Address Book, you can read this Apple.com article on importing and exporting vCards or this Macworld article on how to export multiple people into a single vCard from Apple’s Address Book.)

How do I get my ACT contacts into Highrise?

To get your ACT! 9 contacts into Highrise, you’ll need to export them as a CSV file and then import that file into Highrise. To do this, start by selecting the “Export” option in ACT’s “File” menu. (Note: Though this process may work with other versions of ACT!, we only provide official support for ACT! 9.)

You’ll enter the “Export Wizard.” Click the “Next” button.

Select “Text Delimited” as the type of file to export to. Click the “Next” button.

Select the filename and location for your export. Click the “Next” button.

The next screen lets you specify record types. Choose “Contact Records” as the kind of records to export and export “All records.” Click the “Next” button.

Choose “Comma” as the character to separate each field and be sure to select “Yes, export field names” (this is not selected by default). Then click the “Next” button.

The “Contact Map” defaults are fine so just click the “Next” button.

A summary screen appears. Click the “Finish” button to complete the export.

At this point, you’ve successfully exported your ACT contacts as a CSV file. Now you just need to import the CSV file into Highrise.

Go to Highrise and click the Contacts tab.

Next, click the “Import” link in the sidebar.

Choose the “Import from ACT!” link.

Choose the CSV file you exported from ACT. Then click the “Upload and import” button.

When your file is done uploading, your ACT contacts will appear in Highrise!

How do I get my Basecamp contacts into Highrise?

Basecamp is a popular web-based collaboration tool from the same people who make Highrise. If you have people in your Basecamp account you can pull them over to Highrise. To do this, visit the Contacts tab...

Then click the “Import from Basecamp” link in the sidebar.

Next, enter your Basecamp account information so your Highrise and Basecamp acounts can “shake hands” and do business together.

Once the transfer is completed (it may take a few minutes), all the people in your Basecamp account will now also be in your Highrise account.

How do I import people from another address book or program? How do I import a vCard?

You can import people from other programs using the vCard format. To import a vCard, first click the “Contacts” tab in Highrise.

Next, click the “Import” link in the sidebar.

Choose the “Upload a vCard file” link.

Select the vCard on your computer and then click the “Upload and import” button.

When your file is done uploading, the person/people in that vCard will be added to Highrise and listed on the “Contacts” screen.

What is a vCard?

A vCard, or “virtual address card,” is a standard method of exchanging data between applications. You can export addresses as vCards from another application and then import them into Highrise.

Can I import multiple people at once?

Yes. Highrise supports importing multiple people from a single multi-person vCard. Uploading a multi-person vCard will allow you to import multiple people at once.

Can I import contacts from an Excel/CSV file into Highrise?

Yes. The instructions below will show you how to import a CSV file into Highrise. If you’re trying to import contacts from Excel, you need to save your Excel file as a CSV file first. Learn how to create a CSV file from an Excel spreadsheet.

Step 1: Upload an Excel/CSV file
Go to Highrise and click the Contacts tab.

Next, click the “Import” link in the sidebar.

Choose the “Import an Excel/CSV file” link.

Choose the CSV file. Then click the “Upload and import” button.

Step 2: Match your data with fields in Highrise
Now you need to help Highrise match up your data with the right fields within Highrise. This next screen will guide you:

The screen starts off by showing you how many contacts you’ve imported. Then Highrise guesses the best field matches for your data (i.e. how that data will be labelled within Highrise). You can make changes by selecting the proper fields from the pulldown menus.

Note: Highrise can accept multiple entries for one field. So someone can have three work phone numbers. If this is what you’d like, just go ahead and select the same field multiple times.

If no match is found
If Highrise can’t find a match, the pulldown will say “NO MATCH, SELECT...” with a faint yellow background. Choose the field that is most appropriate.

Or you can choose to ignore a field completely. Just choose “Do not import this field” from the pulldown.

Check a few contacts
It’s a good idea to check a few different contacts in order to ensure that fields are matching properly. After you’ve matched up the fields for one contact, click Previous/Next through your other contacts to make sure all the fields are still matched up with the correct data.

How to ignore the first row of your Excel file
If the first row of your Excel file is made up of column headers instead of actual data, you may want to ignore that row during importing. How can you tell if this is the case? You’ll see fields that should have actual data showing up with column headers like “first name” and “last name” (instead of an actual first and last name like “John” and “Doe”)...

If this is the case, you can choose to ignore that first row during importing by selecting the checkbox that says “Ignore the first row when importing.”

Import contacts
Now that you’re sure your data is matching up properly, you can go ahead and click the “Import these contacts” button.

Step 3: Confirmation screen
Then you’ll see a confirmation screen and your contacts will show up in Highrise!

What happens if I import the same contacts more than once?

Highrise will skip duplicate records during imports. So, for example, you could upload your Basecamp contacts into Highrise every day as an additive sync. Highrise will add just the new contacts and skip the ones already in the system.

How do I export my contacts from Highrise?

It’s easy to get your contacts out of Highrise. To export contacts, first click the “Contacts” tab.

Then click the “Export” link in the sidebar.

Select the type of export you want. If you export less than 100 contacts, an automatic file download will begin. If you export more than 100 contacts, we’ll send you an email with the file once the export is complete. The email will come from Highrise. It should just take a few minutes.

You can export your contacts in any of these formats:

Export multiple-person vCard
This format combines all your contacts into a single vCard file. Not all programs can accept this format of vCard, but if you use the Mac Address Book we recommend this format.

Export individual vCards
This is the most popular export format. This format exports each person to a separate vCard. We then zip all the files together into a single archive. Your computer will unzip the files after you download them.

Export CSV file
This format is useful for those who want to export their contacts to Excel, a spreadsheet, or a database. CSV stands for Comma Separated Values.

Can I export notes, tasks, or cases from Highrise?

Highrise can export your notes/emails from your contacts, cases, and deals. Here’s how it works:

First, click the “My Info” link in the top right corner of the screen. Once you’re on the My Info screen, look in the sidebar for the “Export your data” option (highlighted in red for this example):

Click the “Export data” link. You’ll then receive an email in a few minutes with a link to download your data.

The data is presented in a single zip file. When you decompress the file you’ll see up to three directories: cases, contacts, deals.

Clicking into any one of them will then give you a series of text files. The contacts text files, as seen in the example below, will be named with the contact’s name.

When you open one of those files you’ll see all the notes/emails attached to that person. It’ll look something like this:

The data is in YAML format which means it’s both human readable and also machine readable.

Note: You can only export data for contacts, cases, and deals that you have access to see. The export will only contain data that jives with your permissions.

Can I import or export tags?

Tags cannot be imported to Highrise or exported with your contact information. Tags can only be added to a contact from within that person’s contact screen.

How can I add my tasks to my calendar?

Highrise allows you to subscribe to your tasks using an iCal feed and have them appear in your desktop/web-software Calendar. The iCal feed can be imported into many calendar programs, such as The Backpack Calendar, Apple iCal, Mozilla Calendar, or Microsoft Outlook 2007 (and later versions).

To subscribe, go to your Tasks tab and click the link that says “Subscribe to your iCalendar task feed.” If you have a default calendar program that accepts iCals, it will open up and add this feed.

My calendar program doesn’t recognize "webcal://" — what should I do?

If you try to subscribe to your Highrise Milestones in iCalendar format, and your computer tells you it doesn't recognize "webcal://" you’ll need to manually subscribe to the milestones calendar in your calendar program by replacing "webcal://" with "http://".

Why do I get errors when I try to subscribe to the iCalendar?

There are a few possible reasons for this:

1. You don’t have an iCalendar-compatible calendar program installed on your computer. iCalendar is a file format and if you don’t have a program that can read it then you can’t subscribe to it.
2. You have an iCalendar-compatible calendar program BUT your computer isn’t set up to launch the program when you click on an iCalendar URL on the web. In this case you need to copy the iCalendar URL and manually subscribe to that URL from within your iCalendar-compatible program. If you don’t know how to do that please consult the manual or help files that came with your iCalendar-compatible program.
3. You changed your Highrise password. When you change your Highrise password your iCalendar URLs are reset for security purposes. So, if you were subscribed before, but now you can’t get to your iCalendar calendars, you may want to just resubscribe again.

For more information on the iCalendar format, see the iCalendar entry at Wikipedia.