Outlook 2007 Contacts Sorting Problem when Company is (none)

[Dennis]

In upgrading to a new machine and installing Outlook 2007, contacts are not
being sorted correctly. When View=>Current View=>Business Cards then all
Company (field is filled in) contacts are sorted correctly (Set up to sort by
Company then by Last Name). BUT personal contacts (where Company field is
blank), old contacts (brought in by a COPY from previous PST) appear first
while New contacts (added now) appear below the last old personal contact.
When looking at contacts in the View=>Current View=>by Company, Outlook shows
two groups of Companynone) (xxx items), the first is the old contacts while
the second are the newly added contacts.

Does anyone know of a way to group the contacts where Company is none? I
have tried export/import, deleting and moving back all to no avail. Thank you

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Preferences will not be applied to existing Contacts. Only to those you
create. Why would you choose to sort by a field that is null? Makes no
sense.

 

[Dennis]

Russ,
Thank you for your quick response. I'm not sure what you mean by
"Preferences will not be applied to existing contacts only to new". Here's
more detail: I have all of my contacts in one folder. I prefer not to have
business contacts and personal contacts in subfolders. Everything works quite
well, my Sort order is Company name and then Last Name, First Name. This way,
all personal contacts are seggregated above the 123 tab, all business
contacts are broken down to each tab letter and are easy to navigate to.

This way personal contacts are not intermixed with business contacts. The
problem I'm experiencing is that the personal contacts are sorted in two
groups. The first is my old contacts and the second are any new contacts
(that is those that I create now).

I would prefer to continue to organize all contacts this way but am open to
suggestions if there is no way to have all contacts where Company is blank
grouped together. I would also appreciate knowing why preferences are not
applied to all contacts not just new. Is there a way to import (or by moving)
to make all old contacts be treated as new contacts?

Thanks for your time.
Dennis

Preferences will not be applied to existing Contacts. Only to those you
create. Why would you choose to sort by a field that is null? Makes no
sense.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

In upgrading to a new machine and installing Outlook 2007, contacts are
not
being sorted correctly. When View=>Current View=>Business Cards then all
Company (field is filled in) contacts are sorted correctly (Set up to sort
by
Company then by Last Name). BUT personal contacts (where Company field is
blank), old contacts (brought in by a COPY from previous PST) appear first
while New contacts (added now) appear below the last old personal contact.
When looking at contacts in the View=>Current View=>by Company, Outlook
shows
two groups of Companynone) (xxx items), the first is the old contacts
while
the second are the newly added contacts.

Does anyone know of a way to group the contacts where Company is none? I
have tried export/import, deleting and moving back all to no avail. Thank
you

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

I think you need to look for a better way to create the view you want.
Business Cards isn't a very good view to do what you want if it forces you
to sort on a field that is null for many of your Contacts, especially if
those Contacts were created in different versions of Outlook.
Why not use the By Company view to group your contacts, then sort each group
the way you want? That should work.
The preferences I was referring to are the settings you chose for derived
fields like File As... and Full Name... Many people sort on those fields
only to discover that those fields are not consistent because the Contacts
were created under different conditions or in different versions. I was
afraid you might have been trying to sort on views that weren't consistent
and were trying to change them with your settings.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

Russ,
Thank you for your quick response. I'm not sure what you mean by
"Preferences will not be applied to existing contacts only to new". Here's
more detail: I have all of my contacts in one folder. I prefer not to have
business contacts and personal contacts in subfolders. Everything works
quite
well, my Sort order is Company name and then Last Name, First Name. This
way,
all personal contacts are seggregated above the 123 tab, all business
contacts are broken down to each tab letter and are easy to navigate to.

This way personal contacts are not intermixed with business contacts. The
problem I'm experiencing is that the personal contacts are sorted in two
groups. The first is my old contacts and the second are any new contacts
(that is those that I create now).

I would prefer to continue to organize all contacts this way but am open
to
suggestions if there is no way to have all contacts where Company is blank
grouped together. I would also appreciate knowing why preferences are not
applied to all contacts not just new. Is there a way to import (or by
moving)
to make all old contacts be treated as new contacts?

Thanks for your time.
Dennis

Preferences will not be applied to existing Contacts. Only to those you
create. Why would you choose to sort by a field that is null? Makes no
sense.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

In upgrading to a new machine and installing Outlook 2007, contacts are
not
being sorted correctly. When View=>Current View=>Business Cards then
all
Company (field is filled in) contacts are sorted correctly (Set up to
sort
by
Company then by Last Name). BUT personal contacts (where Company field
is
blank), old contacts (brought in by a COPY from previous PST) appear
first
while New contacts (added now) appear below the last old personal
contact.
When looking at contacts in the View=>Current View=>by Company, Outlook
shows
two groups of Companynone) (xxx items), the first is the old contacts
while
the second are the newly added contacts.

Does anyone know of a way to group the contacts where Company is none?
I
have tried export/import, deleting and moving back all to no avail.
Thank
you

 

[Dennis]

I think you need to look for a better way to create the view you want.
Business Cards isn't a very good view to do what you want if it forces you
to sort on a field that is null for many of your Contacts, especially if
those Contacts were created in different versions of Outlook.
Why not use the By Company view to group your contacts, then sort each group
the way you want? That should work.
The preferences I was referring to are the settings you chose for derived
fields like File As... and Full Name... Many people sort on those fields
only to discover that those fields are not consistent because the Contacts
were created under different conditions or in different versions. I was
afraid you might have been trying to sort on views that weren't consistent
and were trying to change them with your settings.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

Russ,
Thank you for your quick response. I'm not sure what you mean by
"Preferences will not be applied to existing contacts only to new". Here's
more detail: I have all of my contacts in one folder. I prefer not to have
business contacts and personal contacts in subfolders. Everything works
quite
well, my Sort order is Company name and then Last Name, First Name. This
way,
all personal contacts are seggregated above the 123 tab, all business
contacts are broken down to each tab letter and are easy to navigate to.

This way personal contacts are not intermixed with business contacts. The
problem I'm experiencing is that the personal contacts are sorted in two
groups. The first is my old contacts and the second are any new contacts
(that is those that I create now).

I would prefer to continue to organize all contacts this way but am open
to
suggestions if there is no way to have all contacts where Company is blank
grouped together. I would also appreciate knowing why preferences are not
applied to all contacts not just new. Is there a way to import (or by
moving)
to make all old contacts be treated as new contacts?

Thanks for your time.
Dennis

Preferences will not be applied to existing Contacts. Only to those you
create. Why would you choose to sort by a field that is null? Makes no
sense.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
In upgrading to a new machine and installing Outlook 2007, contacts are
not
being sorted correctly. When View=>Current View=>Business Cards then
all
Company (field is filled in) contacts are sorted correctly (Set up to
sort
by
Company then by Last Name). BUT personal contacts (where Company field
is
blank), old contacts (brought in by a COPY from previous PST) appear
first
while New contacts (added now) appear below the last old personal
contact.
When looking at contacts in the View=>Current View=>by Company, Outlook
shows
two groups of Companynone) (xxx items), the first is the old contacts
while
the second are the newly added contacts.

Does anyone know of a way to group the contacts where Company is none?
I
have tried export/import, deleting and moving back all to no avail.
Thank
you

Russ,
Thanks again for your response. The Business Card View is the best one for
the way we use Outlook – more than 95% of the contacts or more are have
company name, there are a small percentage which are personal and do not have
a company. The other reason for using Business Cards is that all business
contacts are sorted nicely and available via tabs on the right hand side and
personal contacts are above the 123 tab. The business contacts are all sorted
properly by business name and sorted by last name. This makes it very easy to
navigate to. The By Company view is only a listing with no tabs so is
unusable (and by the way there are still two groups where company is “noneâ€).
The key issue is the one you raised where personal contacts do not have a
company (blank field) and the sort groups those contacts into two “noneâ€
groups (can be seen on By Company view as well).If they were sorted into one,
then all would be fine. The problem you mention is that contacts created with
earlier versions of Outlook must have hidden data that causes 2007 (2003 did
the same) to sort into two different categories, both called none. If there
was way around this, then everything would be perfect. I could enter Company
as “1†but that’s a lot of editing and doesn’t display well. It appears the
only way is to retype all of the information, and unfortunately there is a
lot of data from over the years. Is there not some program or utility that
can upgrade contacts that were entered using older versions of Outlook to the
current version that would prevent this from happening? I’ve run the repair
utility but that didn’t fix it. In my way of thinking a “blank field†is a
valid sort (and it does work other than old contacts are in a separate
group). Any further suggestions are welcomed. Thanks.
Dennis

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

I don't know of any good solution to this, nor any third party software that
can achieve what you want. You're exactly right that Contacts created in
earlier versions may not behave the same way as Contacts created in the
current version. Each version of Outlook handles its PST files and data
somewhat differently, but those differences are not documented. It's also
easy to migrate data from one version to another improperly (like by
exporting and importing) which only compounds the problem.

Because how PST files work is proprietary information, it has been difficult
for third party developers to come up with solutions to these problems. I
don't keep up with third party offerings, but there are some pretty bright
people out there working on these things, so it never hurts to search, or
maybe someone else know of something that might help.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

I think you need to look for a better way to create the view you want.
Business Cards isn't a very good view to do what you want if it forces
you
to sort on a field that is null for many of your Contacts, especially if
those Contacts were created in different versions of Outlook.
Why not use the By Company view to group your contacts, then sort each
group
the way you want? That should work.
The preferences I was referring to are the settings you chose for derived
fields like File As... and Full Name... Many people sort on those fields
only to discover that those fields are not consistent because the
Contacts
were created under different conditions or in different versions. I was
afraid you might have been trying to sort on views that weren't
consistent
and were trying to change them with your settings.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

Russ,
Thank you for your quick response. I'm not sure what you mean by
"Preferences will not be applied to existing contacts only to new".
Here's
more detail: I have all of my contacts in one folder. I prefer not to
have
business contacts and personal contacts in subfolders. Everything works
quite
well, my Sort order is Company name and then Last Name, First Name.
This
way,
all personal contacts are seggregated above the 123 tab, all business
contacts are broken down to each tab letter and are easy to navigate
to.

This way personal contacts are not intermixed with business contacts.
The
problem I'm experiencing is that the personal contacts are sorted in
two
groups. The first is my old contacts and the second are any new
contacts
(that is those that I create now).

I would prefer to continue to organize all contacts this way but am
open
to
suggestions if there is no way to have all contacts where Company is
blank
grouped together. I would also appreciate knowing why preferences are
not
applied to all contacts not just new. Is there a way to import (or by
moving)
to make all old contacts be treated as new contacts?

Thanks for your time.
Dennis
:

Preferences will not be applied to existing Contacts. Only to those
you
create. Why would you choose to sort by a field that is null? Makes no
sense.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
In upgrading to a new machine and installing Outlook 2007, contacts
are
not
being sorted correctly. When View=>Current View=>Business Cards then
all
Company (field is filled in) contacts are sorted correctly (Set up
to
sort
by
Company then by Last Name). BUT personal contacts (where Company
field
is
blank), old contacts (brought in by a COPY from previous PST) appear
first
while New contacts (added now) appear below the last old personal
contact.
When looking at contacts in the View=>Current View=>by Company,
Outlook
shows
two groups of Companynone) (xxx items), the first is the old
contacts
while
the second are the newly added contacts.

Does anyone know of a way to group the contacts where Company is
none?
I
have tried export/import, deleting and moving back all to no avail.
Thank
you

Russ,
Thanks again for your response. The Business Card View is the best one for
the way we use Outlook – more than 95% of the contacts or more are have
company name, there are a small percentage which are personal and do not
have
a company. The other reason for using Business Cards is that all business
contacts are sorted nicely and available via tabs on the right hand side
and
personal contacts are above the 123 tab. The business contacts are all
sorted
properly by business name and sorted by last name. This makes it very easy
to
navigate to. The By Company view is only a listing with no tabs so is
unusable (and by the way there are still two groups where company is
“noneâ€).
The key issue is the one you raised where personal contacts do not have a
company (blank field) and the sort groups those contacts into two “noneâ€
groups (can be seen on By Company view as well).If they were sorted into
one,
then all would be fine. The problem you mention is that contacts created
with
earlier versions of Outlook must have hidden data that causes 2007 (2003
did
the same) to sort into two different categories, both called none. If
there
was way around this, then everything would be perfect. I could enter
Company
as “1†but that’s a lot of editing and doesn’t display well. It appears
the
only way is to retype all of the information, and unfortunately there is a
lot of data from over the years. Is there not some program or utility that
can upgrade contacts that were entered using older versions of Outlook to
the
current version that would prevent this from happening? I’ve run the
repair
utility but that didn’t fix it. In my way of thinking a “blank field†is a
valid sort (and it does work other than old contacts are in a separate
group). Any further suggestions are welcomed. Thanks.
Dennis

 

[Dennis]

Thanks again for the information Russ. Sorry for all the back and forth. I
have one final question, you mention export/import is not the best way to do
an upgrade. What is? Just open the old pst and drag a copy of Contacts? Same
question moving Calendar data from an old version to a new - I've often lost
the recurrence field (yearly only occurs once).

Dennis

I don't know of any good solution to this, nor any third party software that
can achieve what you want. You're exactly right that Contacts created in
earlier versions may not behave the same way as Contacts created in the
current version. Each version of Outlook handles its PST files and data
somewhat differently, but those differences are not documented. It's also
easy to migrate data from one version to another improperly (like by
exporting and importing) which only compounds the problem.

Because how PST files work is proprietary information, it has been difficult
for third party developers to come up with solutions to these problems. I
don't keep up with third party offerings, but there are some pretty bright
people out there working on these things, so it never hurts to search, or
maybe someone else know of something that might help.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

I think you need to look for a better way to create the view you want.
Business Cards isn't a very good view to do what you want if it forces
you
to sort on a field that is null for many of your Contacts, especially if
those Contacts were created in different versions of Outlook.
Why not use the By Company view to group your contacts, then sort each
group
the way you want? That should work.
The preferences I was referring to are the settings you chose for derived
fields like File As... and Full Name... Many people sort on those fields
only to discover that those fields are not consistent because the
Contacts
were created under different conditions or in different versions. I was
afraid you might have been trying to sort on views that weren't
consistent
and were trying to change them with your settings.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
Russ,
Thank you for your quick response. I'm not sure what you mean by
"Preferences will not be applied to existing contacts only to new".
Here's
more detail: I have all of my contacts in one folder. I prefer not to
have
business contacts and personal contacts in subfolders. Everything works
quite
well, my Sort order is Company name and then Last Name, First Name.
This
way,
all personal contacts are seggregated above the 123 tab, all business
contacts are broken down to each tab letter and are easy to navigate
to.

This way personal contacts are not intermixed with business contacts.
The
problem I'm experiencing is that the personal contacts are sorted in
two
groups. The first is my old contacts and the second are any new
contacts
(that is those that I create now).

I would prefer to continue to organize all contacts this way but am
open
to
suggestions if there is no way to have all contacts where Company is
blank
grouped together. I would also appreciate knowing why preferences are
not
applied to all contacts not just new. Is there a way to import (or by
moving)
to make all old contacts be treated as new contacts?

Thanks for your time.
Dennis
:

Preferences will not be applied to existing Contacts. Only to those
you
create. Why would you choose to sort by a field that is null? Makes no
sense.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
In upgrading to a new machine and installing Outlook 2007, contacts
are
not
being sorted correctly. When View=>Current View=>Business Cards then
all
Company (field is filled in) contacts are sorted correctly (Set up
to
sort
by
Company then by Last Name). BUT personal contacts (where Company
field
is
blank), old contacts (brought in by a COPY from previous PST) appear
first
while New contacts (added now) appear below the last old personal
contact.
When looking at contacts in the View=>Current View=>by Company,
Outlook
shows
two groups of Companynone) (xxx items), the first is the old
contacts
while
the second are the newly added contacts.

Does anyone know of a way to group the contacts where Company is
none?
I
have tried export/import, deleting and moving back all to no avail.
Thank
you

Russ,
Thanks again for your response. The Business Card View is the best one for
the way we use Outlook – more than 95% of the contacts or more are have
company name, there are a small percentage which are personal and do not
have
a company. The other reason for using Business Cards is that all business
contacts are sorted nicely and available via tabs on the right hand side
and
personal contacts are above the 123 tab. The business contacts are all
sorted
properly by business name and sorted by last name. This makes it very easy
to
navigate to. The By Company view is only a listing with no tabs so is
unusable (and by the way there are still two groups where company is
“noneâ€).
The key issue is the one you raised where personal contacts do not have a
company (blank field) and the sort groups those contacts into two “noneâ€
groups (can be seen on By Company view as well).If they were sorted into
one,
then all would be fine. The problem you mention is that contacts created
with
earlier versions of Outlook must have hidden data that causes 2007 (2003
did
the same) to sort into two different categories, both called none. If
there
was way around this, then everything would be perfect. I could enter
Company
as “1†but that’s a lot of editing and doesn’t display well. It appears
the
only way is to retype all of the information, and unfortunately there is a
lot of data from over the years. Is there not some program or utility that
can upgrade contacts that were entered using older versions of Outlook to
the
current version that would prevent this from happening? I’ve run the
repair
utility but that didn’t fix it. In my way of thinking a “blank field†is a
valid sort (and it does work other than old contacts are in a separate
group). Any further suggestions are welcomed. Thanks.
Dennis

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

You never use export and import to transfer Outlook data. You simply copy
the data file and open it in the other installation. Correct methods for
data transfer are posted here frequently. Take a look at these pages for
info on Outlook data backup or transfer:
http://www.slipstick.com/config/backup.htm
http://www.howto-outlook.com/Howto/backupandrestore.htm
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010771141033.aspx

--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

Thanks again for the information Russ. Sorry for all the back and forth. I
have one final question, you mention export/import is not the best way to
do
an upgrade. What is? Just open the old pst and drag a copy of Contacts?
Same
question moving Calendar data from an old version to a new - I've often
lost
the recurrence field (yearly only occurs once).

Dennis

I don't know of any good solution to this, nor any third party software
that
can achieve what you want. You're exactly right that Contacts created in
earlier versions may not behave the same way as Contacts created in the
current version. Each version of Outlook handles its PST files and data
somewhat differently, but those differences are not documented. It's also
easy to migrate data from one version to another improperly (like by
exporting and importing) which only compounds the problem.

Because how PST files work is proprietary information, it has been
difficult
for third party developers to come up with solutions to these problems. I
don't keep up with third party offerings, but there are some pretty
bright
people out there working on these things, so it never hurts to search, or
maybe someone else know of something that might help.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

:

I think you need to look for a better way to create the view you want.
Business Cards isn't a very good view to do what you want if it forces
you
to sort on a field that is null for many of your Contacts, especially
if
those Contacts were created in different versions of Outlook.
Why not use the By Company view to group your contacts, then sort each
group
the way you want? That should work.
The preferences I was referring to are the settings you chose for
derived
fields like File As... and Full Name... Many people sort on those
fields
only to discover that those fields are not consistent because the
Contacts
were created under different conditions or in different versions. I
was
afraid you might have been trying to sort on views that weren't
consistent
and were trying to change them with your settings.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
Russ,
Thank you for your quick response. I'm not sure what you mean by
"Preferences will not be applied to existing contacts only to new".
Here's
more detail: I have all of my contacts in one folder. I prefer not
to
have
business contacts and personal contacts in subfolders. Everything
works
quite
well, my Sort order is Company name and then Last Name, First Name.
This
way,
all personal contacts are seggregated above the 123 tab, all
business
contacts are broken down to each tab letter and are easy to navigate
to.

This way personal contacts are not intermixed with business
contacts.
The
problem I'm experiencing is that the personal contacts are sorted in
two
groups. The first is my old contacts and the second are any new
contacts
(that is those that I create now).

I would prefer to continue to organize all contacts this way but am
open
to
suggestions if there is no way to have all contacts where Company is
blank
grouped together. I would also appreciate knowing why preferences
are
not
applied to all contacts not just new. Is there a way to import (or
by
moving)
to make all old contacts be treated as new contacts?

Thanks for your time.
Dennis
:

Preferences will not be applied to existing Contacts. Only to those
you
create. Why would you choose to sort by a field that is null? Makes
no
sense.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
In upgrading to a new machine and installing Outlook 2007,
contacts
are
not
being sorted correctly. When View=>Current View=>Business Cards
then
all
Company (field is filled in) contacts are sorted correctly (Set
up
to
sort
by
Company then by Last Name). BUT personal contacts (where Company
field
is
blank), old contacts (brought in by a COPY from previous PST)
appear
first
while New contacts (added now) appear below the last old personal
contact.
When looking at contacts in the View=>Current View=>by Company,
Outlook
shows
two groups of Companynone) (xxx items), the first is the old
contacts
while
the second are the newly added contacts.

Does anyone know of a way to group the contacts where Company is
none?
I
have tried export/import, deleting and moving back all to no
avail.
Thank
you




Russ,
Thanks again for your response. The Business Card View is the best one
for
the way we use Outlook – more than 95% of the contacts or more are have
company name, there are a small percentage which are personal and do
not
have
a company. The other reason for using Business Cards is that all
business
contacts are sorted nicely and available via tabs on the right hand
side
and
personal contacts are above the 123 tab. The business contacts are all
sorted
properly by business name and sorted by last name. This makes it very
easy
to
navigate to. The By Company view is only a listing with no tabs so is
unusable (and by the way there are still two groups where company is
“noneâ€).
The key issue is the one you raised where personal contacts do not have
a
company (blank field) and the sort groups those contacts into two
“noneâ€
groups (can be seen on By Company view as well).If they were sorted
into
one,
then all would be fine. The problem you mention is that contacts
created
with
earlier versions of Outlook must have hidden data that causes 2007
(2003
did
the same) to sort into two different categories, both called none. If
there
was way around this, then everything would be perfect. I could enter
Company
as “1†but that’s a lot of editing and doesn’t display well. It appears
the
only way is to retype all of the information, and unfortunately there
is a
lot of data from over the years. Is there not some program or utility
that
can upgrade contacts that were entered using older versions of Outlook
to
the
current version that would prevent this from happening? I’ve run the
repair
utility but that didn’t fix it. In my way of thinking a “blank fieldâ€
is a
valid sort (and it does work other than old contacts are in a separate
group). Any further suggestions are welcomed. Thanks.
Dennis