Parenthesis missing in "File As" for Company Name

[Left HIgh and Dry by MSFT]

In Outlook 2007, my default "File As" format for contacts is:

"Last Name, First Name (Company Name)"

However, for several of my contacts instead of appearing as:

Smith, John (ABC Products)

the "File As" field appears as:

Smith, John, ABC Products

This is driving me nuts! All the normal fields (First Name, Last Name,
Company Name, etc.) are already populated correctly. Anyone have any
suggestions? There is some sort of formatting applied to each contact
individually in this case. But how?

 

[Karl Timmermans]

There is a whole lot of info missing from this explanation to even remotely
guess as to possible cause but some questions that beg asking are:

#1 - Are these contacts in PST files or Exch folders? If Exch, Personal or
Public?
#2 - Can you replicate this occurrence on any newly created contact?
#3 - Does this "problem" only show itself on "pre-existing" contacts?
#4 - Were all these contacts manually created (in any version of Outlook) or
imported? If imported, from what data source - i.e PST2PST or CSV to PST
etc?
(simply opening a PST file from a prior Outlook version is not
considered importing - am referring to any explicit "import" process)
#5 - What Outlook version was used to create the contacts with the problem
(see "All Contact Fields" - Outlook Version)
#6 - There is <absolutely> no possibility that "any" kind of manual change
was made to the FileAs field by anyone at any time - is that correct?

Just by looking at the example of the invalid entry where there is a comma
following each word indicates that this is not being parsed using info
entered into Outlook since Outlook does not add a second comma regardless of
default format used. Outlook '2007 (or any other version for that matter)
doesn't have separate formatting rules "by contact" - goes by whatever the
default is set to when the contact is created.

Karl
___________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer 1.3 / DataPorter 2.0 / Exporter
"Power contact importers/exporters for MS Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com

 

[Left HIgh and Dry by MSFT]

This is the first time I have ever used this mechanism for reporting an
issue. Note I did not set it as "Left HIgh and Dry by MSFT" (I don't know how
it got that way). Plpease note the inserted responses:

There is a whole lot of info missing from this explanation to even remotely
guess as to possible cause but some questions that beg asking are:
Sorry!


#1 - Are these contacts in PST files or Exch folders? If Exch, Personal or
Public?

I am not sure. How do I tell the difference? This is on my personal PC at
home - so no exchange server could be involved - I know my information is
archived to a .pst folder... Let me know how to check, thanks

#2 - Can you replicate this occurrence on any newly created contact?

Yes, that is the only way newly created contacts will go in. When viewing
contact details for one contact, the parenthesis appear around the company
name in the "File As" field, but looking at a group of contacts the file as
field shows a comma for the company name for that column and row.

#3 - Does this "problem" only show itself on "pre-existing" contacts?

No, only ones newly entered into outlook. Contacts entered into a pocket pc
and then synchronized with outlook display properly within outlook.

#4 - Were all these contacts manually created (in any version of Outlook) or
imported?

Manually crerated in outlook 2007

If imported, from what data source - i.e PST2PST or CSV to PST

etc?
(simply opening a PST file from a prior Outlook version is not
considered importing - am referring to any explicit "import" process)

Oultlook 2007

#5 - What Outlook version was used to create the contacts with the problem
(see "All Contact Fields" - Outlook Version)

#6 - There is <absolutely> no possibility that "any" kind of manual change
was made to the FileAs field by anyone at any time - is that correct?

Yes, I am unable to alter the file as field to display correctly - even if I
manually put the parenthesis in there it shows without them.

Just by looking at the example of the invalid entry where there is a comma
following each word indicates that this is not being parsed using info
entered into Outlook since Outlook does not add a second comma regardless of
default format used. Outlook '2007 (or any other version for that matter)
doesn't have separate formatting rules "by contact" - goes by whatever the
default is set to when the contact is created.

This is incorrect. I can show you a bitmap file picure showing I entered it
into outlook manually, and it shows up in the contact details with the
parenthesis automatically, then when viewing the contact with a group of
contacts all at once the file as field for that one manually entered contact
does not have parenthesis but a comma.

I show it all in a .bmp file. How can I upload that? Or let me know your
email address and I can send that to you - it is not big...

 

[Karl Timmermans]

This is summary of the issue particularly in light of the commented
screenshot you sent me - amazes me that I never noticed this behaviour after
all this time.

#1 - When the default FileAs setting is set to "Last, First (Company), the
FileAs field will be formatted as expected when individual contacts are
opened BUT when the FileAs field is included in a "Detailed View" (i.e.
Phone List as a for instance), the FileAs field will be displayed as
"LastName, FirstName, Company" exactly as you identified in the original
post. Didn't dawn on me to check the detailed views before I posted my
original response. This is true of both Outlook '2007 and '2003 which is all
I had handy to check with at the moment.

#2 - If you import the Name & Company fields via the Outlook import wizard -
the FileAs field will contain only the LastName, FirstName data without the
company name. (Just as an FYI and shameless plug - CG import products will
result in the FileAs field being populated the same way it would have if the
contact were created manually - ergo - using whatever the FA settings are).

#3 - In the example you sent me - you noted one contact that did have the
info displayed correctly (i.e. LN, FN (CN) ) which you suspected was synced.
That would occur if the sync software is explicitly populating the FA field.
We're going to a have a solution for this and a number of other issues
shortly with a new standardization utility which will result with the FA
field appearing in the detailed grid view the same way it does in the
individual contact record.

So in short.....

What you see is the way that Outlook works unless someone else has info on
how to alter this behaviour but doubt that there is such an option within
Outlook.

Karl
___________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer 1.3 / DataPorter 2.0 / Exporter
"Power contact importers/exporters for MS Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com