Linking contacts to tasks or calendar entries

D

David Lundgren

I recently moved to Entourage for running my small (three person) consulting
business after becoming aware of the Project Center in E2004. It's just what
I was looking for, works great for what I do.

I have a question about linking existing contacts to new tasks or calendar
items. When I click to link a contact, I am presented with either my whole
contact list of several hundred persons, or subsets of various sizes,
depending on which category I'm looking for.

I see no way to just type a couple of letters or in a field and get the one
name I want without scrolling through all this stuff every time. Am I
missing something here? On a program this well thought out, this seems like
quite an oversight if there isn't.

Beyond that, it's all good, and I was very happy to discover this list as a
great resource. It took a lot to walk away from the Apple applications for
calendars, addresses, etc, but having one window open that offers links all
over the place and allows thorough views of the projects we're working on is
too good to pass up.

Dave Lundgren

"No keyboard detected. Press any key to continue."
 
P

Paul Berkowitz

I have a question about linking existing contacts to new tasks or calendar
items. When I click to link a contact, I am presented with either my whole
contact list of several hundred persons, or subsets of various sizes,
depending on which category I'm looking for.

I see no way to just type a couple of letters or in a field and get the one
name I want without scrolling through all this stuff every time. Am I
missing something here? On a program this well thought out, this seems like
quite an oversight if there isn't.
Click to expand...

I agree with you - there should be a filter box in the list of contacts.
However, there are two things you can do:

Although the Name column may appear to be selected, the names are in fact
not sorted alphabetically. This is a bug. (They're in order of creation).
Click twice on Name column to put into A-Z order by last name.

And here's a hidden trick I just discovered: having put it into alphabetical
order that way (or single click for Z-A, if you prefer), if you then type
one letter, such as "H", it scrolls to and selects the first contact whose
last name begins with "H". _Don't_ continue with the next letter (such as
"e") - all that will do is scroll to the first contact whose last name
begins with "E". Still, this will save you oodles of scrolling and you'll
only have to scroll through the 20 or so people whose name begins with "H",
alphabetically. That's much better than what you're doing now.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.
 
M

matt neuburg

Paul Berkowitz said:
I agree with you - there should be a filter box in the list of contacts.
However, there are two things you can do:

Although the Name column may appear to be selected, the names are in fact
not sorted alphabetically. This is a bug. (They're in order of creation).
Click twice on Name column to put into A-Z order by last name.

And here's a hidden trick I just discovered: having put it into alphabetical
order that way (or single click for Z-A, if you prefer), if you then type
one letter, such as "H", it scrolls to and selects the first contact whose
last name begins with "H". _Don't_ continue with the next letter (such as
"e") - all that will do is scroll to the first contact whose last name
begins with "E".
Click to expand...

No, Paul, OMM typing the next letter works fine in that window. E.g.
typing BY gets me to "Byrd"; it does not throw me into the Y's. Maybe
you're not typing fast enough?

However, there is a MUCH better way to do all this, which answers the
OP's question far more satisfactorily. Here it is. In your task, choose
Open Links. This opens an empty window (since you don't have any links)
and now you can **DRAG** the contact from the Contacts window into this
window to create the link! Since the Contacts window *does* let you
filter, the problem is solved perfectly. m.
 
P

Paul Berkowitz

No, Paul, OMM typing the next letter works fine in that window. E.g.
typing BY gets me to "Byrd"; it does not throw me into the Y's. Maybe
you're not typing fast enough?
Click to expand...

That must have been it. It works fine now typing quickly. Effectively is is
behaving _exactly_ like a filter without having to first click in a box.
That makes it less discoverable and intuitive, but once you know about it's
actually quicker.
However, there is a MUCH better way to do all this, which answers the
OP's question far more satisfactorily. Here it is. In your task, choose
Open Links. This opens an empty window (since you don't have any links)
and now you can **DRAG** the contact from the Contacts window into this
window to create the link! Since the Contacts window *does* let you
filter, the problem is solved perfectly. m.
Click to expand...


That all depends. If your main window is not set to the Address Book, you
have to first click in the main window which is behind the new task, then
click the Address Book navigation button or press cmd-2, then filter, then
drag after re-arranging your windows. Then click back to where you were in
the main window before. For me, if the Address Book isn't already open, I'd
rather do it the other way. It's good that there are usually several
different ways to do the same thing in Entourage, so suit most people's
habits and preferences.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.
 
J

Joshua Alemany

I am trying to do exactly this EXCEPT I want to start with the contact and
link to an existing calendar event. The list that is presented of events
appears to be sorted NOT AT ALL, though the Description header is
highlighted. Neither clicking on it (1, 2, or 3 times) nor any other
heading has any effect. Any ideas how to sort this list. All I really want
is either alpha or by date.

Thanks in advance if you have some ideas!

Joshua
 
D

Dave Cortright

The easiest way to link two items is to choose Tools:Open Links for one
item, and then drag the other item into the open Links window.
 
T

The Terminator

That¹s not exactly an ideal situation. That requires resizing the window for
the item you want to link to, dropping it into the Open Links window, then
resizing the window back to its original size. Or moving the ³Open Links²
window around so that you can drag and drop into it. All my Entourage
windows are practically full-screen, so that¹s quite a hassle.
 
T

The Terminator

Also, if that is the ³easiest², why are the ³Link to New...² and ³Link to
Existing...² menu items there? Not trying to be a wise-ass, just pointing
out to what (IMHO) is a cumbersome workaround.
 
H

Howard Griffith

So open the Contact, click on the down arrow just to the right of the Link
button, select Link to Existing or Link to New, select Calendar Event,
select the event you want to link them to. If its a new one it opens a new
Calendar Event window for you to fill out.

---OR---

Open the Calendar event, click on the down arrow just to the right of the
Link button, select Link to Existing or Link to New, select Contact, select
the contact you want to link them to. If its a new one it opens a new
Contact window for you to fill out.


Regards,
Howard Griffith
 
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