SugarCRM has flexible data exporting capabilities. Essentially, all of the SugarCRM modules have an export function, accessed by clicking on the Export link at the top left corner of the list portion of each list view screen, including all of Activities, Accounts, Contacts, Documents, Leads, Opportunities, Bugs, Emails, Campaigns, Prospects, Projects, and Cases.
In each case, a .CSV file is produced that contains all the currently selected records from the module in use (not just those records that are currently displayed on the screen). The CSV files can be opened for viewing by using Microsoft Excel, Notepad, WordPad, or other text editors and can easily be parsed as input files by most software.
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A sample portion of a CSV file, exported from the Accounts module and viewed in Microsoft Excel, is shown in the preceding screenshot. You can see that essentially the entire database table is exported in the CSV file with column titles, including the Record ID (a long and largely incomprehensible string of letters and numbers used as a unique reference to each account record) and other fields that SugarCRM uses internally.
We will use Outlook 2003 as an example of exporting contact manager data. Other systems tend to work in similar ways. To export the data from Outlook 2003 carry out the following steps:
Under the File menu, select Import and Export. The Import and Export Wizard dialog box is then displayed.
Select the action Export to a file, and click on the Next button.
Choose to create a file of the type Comma Separated Values (Windows), and click on the Next button.
Select an Outlook folder from which to export—typically your contacts folder—and click on the Next button.
Enter the filename and directory location for the exported file to be created, and click on the Next button.
Confirm your intention to export this file by clicking on the Finish button.
The desired
.CSVfile is then created by Outlook 2003. You can view the file easily using Microsoft Excel or a simple text editor to confirm that the data you intended has been exported.
An excerpt of what the exported file might look like is as follows:
"Title","First Name","Middle Name","Last Name","Suffix","Company"
"","Angel","","Magaña","","ACME CRM"
"","John","","Smith","","Big Software Co."
While many users are well served by the built-in import and export features, others require more advanced solutions to migrate, export, or manipulate the data, perhaps for automated routines or data massaging/formatting. Fortunately, there are various tools that are quite capable of performing these tasks and are worth exploring. Some of those include the following:
Talend Open Studio (http://www.talend.com)
SnapLogic (http://www.snaplogic.com)
Apatar (http://www.apatar.com)
Jitterbit (http://www.jitterbit.com)
The best point concerning these tools is that they are also open source and based