Contact list order is not the same between business card view and the 'list' view that is presented

[DrkEquus]

Hello,

I am using Outlook 2007 on Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit, without the BCM, and I'm curious as to why my Contacts are listed differently when I'm looking at the business card view, where it is consistantly alphabeticalLast_name, First_name Middle_name, and the 'list' view when I click on the " To:," " From:," or " BCC:" field buttons as I'm composing a new e-mail. Some, but not all, of my Contacts in this 'list' view is displaying their titles, such as Mr., Mrs., etc, and is alphabetizing on the presence of the title. Needless to say, this throws me off a little when I'm hunting through the list to send to a particular Contact.

For example, I have one 'list' view record that shows " Name: Ms. Tina J. Doe,Display Name: Ms. T. J. Doe(at)company-domain, E-Mail Address: businesslady(at)mailservice-domain." Note the presence of the title " Ms." in this record. While the very next record shows something like " Name: Nathanial K. Six-Pack, Display Name: Mr. N. K. Six-Pack(at)organization-domain,E-Mail Address: Mr. N.K.Sixpack(at)mailservice1-domain." And note that Mr. Six-Pack's name is being displayed without his title. Because the record for Mr. N. K. Six-Pack's " Name:" field is displaying in the 'list' view without his " Mr." , he is being listed after Ms. T. J. Doe, instead of before her. However, almost every one of my Contacts is being displayed asLast_name, First_name Middle_name format in the Business Card view, without their titles. But, every Contact's card has the person's title entered in theFull_name area inside.

I've tried comparing two different Contacts that I know display differently, and I've not noticed a difference in how I've entered the information. I've even tried deleting a couple of contacts to recreate them, and still I've not yet grokked just how I'm making the 'list' view alphabetize on Title First_name Middle_name Last_name order for some Contacts and justFirst_name Middle_name Last_name order for other Contacts.

I would like to normalize the alphabetical display of the 'list' view, either haveALL Contacts display and alphabetize with a person's title displayed, orALL Contacts alphabetize without said title being displayed...not approximately half of them displaying a title and the other half not displaying thier title. Better yet, can I get the 'list' view to also display inLast_name, First_name Middle_name format?

Thank You in Advance.

 

[Russ Valentine]

Re: Contact list order is not the same between business card view and the 'list' view that is presented when the "To:", "From:", and "BCC:" field buttons on the built-in e-mail form are clicked; how can I make them displ

Outlook is simply doing what you've told it to. Examine the sort order you specified for the address book view. If you don't know how, look here: Tools > Account Settings > Address Book Tab > Outlook Address Book > Change... >Russ Valentine

 

[Karl Timmermans]

Re: Contact list order is not the same between business card view and the 'list' view that is presented when the "To:", "From:", and "BCC:" field buttons on the built-in e-mail form are clicked; how can I make them displ

A few things not mentioned in your post that would be relevant

1) Do only update your contacts via the Outlook UI? and/or

2) Do you sync your contact folder in any way (either mobile or via some online process)? and/or

3) Do you import contacts

Next, comes the understanding of " views" and how they work. A " view" can be categorized as being one of the following three types:
- Tabluar View (i.e. phone list)
- Address Card
- AddressBook

each of which deal with various fields differently and can be impacted if " syncing" or " importing" is thrown into the mix (the most significant fields involved are <FullName> <FileAs> <EmailDisplayAs> and to a lesser extent <CompanyName>. A view does not automatically display the same information as seen in the detail contact view under some circumstances especially when " syncing" is involved.

That gets followed up by how various fields are affected by different actions. A thread that could be considered related to this is the following:

Make File As Same as Display As?

http://answers.microsoft.com/thread/b1613331-681b-4c84-89fb-106af953a94c

Regardless of everything else, you can not alter the way Outlook fills in a particular field (i.e. <FullName> <FileAs> etc) - it is what it is so the key is to understand how everything works.

Re: FullName
- If the <Title> field has a value - Outlook will include it in the FullName field.
- If you enter the contacts name via the individual fields - the FullName is constructed from those fields (<Title>, <First> <Middle> <Last> <Suffix>)
- If you enter the contacts name via the <FullName> field - Outlook will " parse" the value and fill in the individual component parts based on what it considers to be valid (with varying degrees of success in some cases)
- It is not possible to over-ride what Outlook inserts into the <FullName> field when working via the Outlook user interface (or via OOM - Outlook Object Model - programmatically)

Re: FileAs
- Make a change to any part of the FullName (or CompanyName where applicable) and the FileAs field will get automatically updated based on the default display setting selected
- Enter a custom value in the <FileAs> field and it will no longer get automatically updated when a change is made to either the <Name> or <CompanyName> (if applicable)

Re: EmailDisplayAs
- When the contact is initially created - the EmailDisplayAs will get filled in automatically as soon as you enter a valid email address and use the value of the <FullName> field at that point.
- The EmailDisplayAs will then only get automatically updated if the email address changes - it will NOT get updated if there is a change to any part of the <Name> (i.e. addition or removal of a <Title> value for instance)

Re: Importing via the Outlook Import wizard
- The <default> settings as defined via the Outlook UI for <FileAs> does not govern what gets filled in during the import process

Re: mobile sync and the Outlook AddressBook
- there are numerious cases where it's been found that the Outlook AddressBook sort order setting is no longer correct (specifically the values for the <Name> or <FileAs>) are no longer correct for some contacts, primarily ones that were updated via the sync process. The values displayed in the Outlook AB view does not mean that the underlying information in the detail contact item is incorrect - it is (at least it has been for all the cases that have come to our attention so far)

This is by no means any kind of complete description of all the nuances/idiosyncracies related to this particular topic. You may find the standardization functions for <FullName> <FileAs> and <EmailDisplayAs> in ContactGenie Toolkit (http://www.contactgenie.com/toolkit_4_outlook.htm) to be of interest (provides an expanded set of format options for the various fields and also corrects any issues that may have been created via a mobile sync process - leastwise every one that we've been made aware of so far)

 

[DrkEquus]

Re: Contact list order is not the same between business card view and the 'list' view that is presented when the "To:", "From:", and "BCC:" field buttons on the built-in e-mail form are clicked; how can I make them displ

Well, now, I certainly didn't know about THAT setting. Thank you very much, Mr. Valentine. Buy changing that, now those 'list' views I get via the field buttons are alphabetized by theLast_name, First_name Middle_name scheme, making it much easier for me to find e-mail entries. I am curious, though...I've some contacts for which I have fax numbers. I noticed that when the fax number enties are displayed in the 'list' view, they are not also alphabetized by the Last_name, First_name Middle_namescheme. Any idea why fax number listings are still shown by the Title First_name Middle Name Last_name scheme?

 

[DrkEquus]

Re: Contact list order is not the same between business card view and the 'list' view that is presented when the "To:", "From:", and "BCC:" field buttons on the built-in e-mail form are clicked; how can I make them displ

Thank you, Mr. Timmermans. You told me a lot about Outlook's syncing idiosyncrities that I was not aware of, but I think those quirks mostly applies to situations where Outlook is being used with a central repository like MS Exchange, or even possibly the Google apps. My case is strictly an at-home, stand-alone installation where I do all my interaction through the Outlook UI; I am likely the " victim" of getting hooked on Outlook 98 way back in the day, and I've pretty much stayed with the program through the ensuing years. Call me crazy; I know I have issues, but I strive to embrace them! *lol*

 

[Russ Valentine]

Re: Contact list order is not the same between business card view and the 'list' view that is presented when the "To:", "From:", and "BCC:" field buttons on the built-in e-mail form are clicked; how can I make them displ

You left out too much information to permit an answer. Assuming you have set the address book view to sort by the File As field, I suspect you will find that the File As field for your fax recipients is exactly what is showing in the address book view. You are free to change that field to whatever you want.

FYI: the address book view is a dinosaur that few still use for searching for recipients.

Russ Valentine

 

[Karl Timmermans]

Re: Contact list order is not the same between business card view and the 'list' view that is presented when the "To:", "From:", and "BCC:" field buttons on the built-in e-mail form are clicked; how can I make them displ

If you are only dealing with updates processed via the Outlook UI then Russ's initial response applies to the segment of your question related to " To:" " CC" and " BCC" which would bring up the " AddressBook" .

The items I mentioned apply universally whether Exchange is involved or not in terms of the <FullName>, <FileAs> and <EmailDisplayAs> fields since those are contact item specific. How relevant or applicable those issues are to anyone depends on specific individual circumstances.

 

[DrkEquus]

Re: Contact list order is not the same between business card view and the 'list' view that is presented when the "To:", "From:", and "BCC:" field buttons on the built-in e-mail form are clicked; how can I make them displ

Thank you. I didn't look at it close enough. What it is doing is that for the e-mail record, it lists theFull_name asLast_name, First_name Middle_name, which is what I wanted, followed by theDisplay_name I had set, thenE-mail_address. What confused me was that if I have a fax number in the Contact's card, then it has a fax number record under the e-mail record, but it shows theFull_name, again asLast_name, First_name Middle_name, then it repeats theFull_name in theDisplay_name field, after which(Business/Home/Other Fax)is appended , followed by First_name Middle_name Last_name (at) Fax_number. I had expected theDisplay_name of the fax number record to look the same as the one in the e-mail record. But, it is a very tiny thing, and is easy to accommodate. I'm happy to have finally found how to get my 'list' view so it is alphabetized by Contacts' last name!

As for using a dinosaur feature, ah well. I'm much more familiar with using a Rolodex (another dinosaur feature) than using search. Most of the time, I can find what I want before a seach function can find it if I use such an antiquated indexing method. lol I'll be long become dust before I stop using such. Hmmm, I think I just old off on my difficulty in making useful search queries. *rueful sigh*