Display Name of Recepient

[Guest]

Hello!

I need to know:

1. What function does the "Display as" field have? Someone mentioned in
an earlier post that it is of little consequence. What is this field for
then? I thought it was the field that "displays" to the sender their name as
indicated in that field, when you use their email address. Is that incorrect?

2. If this field is not the one that does this - how do I send an email to
a person, so that when they receive the email - only their "name" is showing
in the "To" field. I know this can be done because I've received emails both
ways - with my name and email address, email only, or just name. How do you
set this?

Many thanks!

 

[Brian Tillman]

I need to know:

1. What function does the "Display as" field have? Someone
mentioned in an earlier post that it is of little consequence. What
is this field for then? I thought it was the field that "displays" to
the sender their name as indicated in that field, when you use their
email address. Is that incorrect?

It's a convenience for the sender. It displays exactly what the sender
wants to see for that contact to make it easier to remember who the contact
is.

2. If this field is not the one that does this - how do I send an
email to a person, so that when they receive the email - only their
"name" is showing in the "To" field. I know this can be done because
I've received emails both ways - with my name and email address,
email only, or just name. How do you set this?

The Display As field will also appear in the To field of the recipient.
Outook will transmit a To field of

"Display name" <address>

which should be displayed by the recipient's mail client either as shown or
as simply "Display name".

 

[Guest]

Thank you!

Regarding #2 - what determines whether the "TO" field is displayed by the
recipient's mail client as "Display name" <address> or as simply "Display
name"?

Can we (the sender) decide this?

I want the Sender to see "Display Name" ONLY when they receive the message
in the "TO" field.

Or is this a function of the recipient's mail client?

Many thanks!!!

 

[Brian Tillman]

Regarding #2 - what determines whether the "TO" field is displayed by
the recipient's mail client as "Display name" <address> or as simply
"Display name"?

The recipient's client determines this. You have no control over it.

 

[Alphonse]

You can edit the Display as field in each contact by opening each one, or by
using Phone List and editing directly on each cell of that column, which you
probably need to add to that particular view.

 

[Guest]

Thank you Brian! This is very enlightening information - in light of the
fact that I've read so many threads from folks who are disappointed that the
"Display As" field cannot be universally changed to reflect "Name Only".

What does it matter then - if we have no control over what the Recipient
receives - based on their email client?

Is that what you are saying? That regardless of what is in the "Display as"
field - what the recipient sees is based on how their email client provides
it?

This is amazing to me.

So let me ask you this:

My client seems to feel that when I exported her list to excel and imported
it back into Outlook - that we lost her "Display as" field - which used to be
"name" only but is now "name and email".

She doesn't want her recipients to receive an email with the email address
in it. But she has not control over that - right?

Thanks for clarification. This is just very strange to me.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Is that what you are saying? That regardless of what is in the
"Display as" field - what the recipient sees is based on how their
email client provides it?

It's based IN PART on the recipient's client. Most clients I've used will
show only the Display As value, unless the recipient displays the properties
of the entities in the recipient field.

My client seems to feel that when I exported her list to excel and
imported
it back into Outlook - that we lost her "Display as" field - which used to
be
"name" only but is now "name and email".

Exporting and importing will often result in the loss or resetting of fields
such as Display As. That's why export/import should be avoided when
transferring data from one Outlook to another Outlook.

If she needs to change the Display As field on a wholesale basis, this tool
could be of use:
http://www.outlook-stuff.com/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_details/gid,1/Itemid,2/

She doesn't want her recipients to receive an email with the email address
in it. But she has not control over that - right?

She can certainly try and in most cases, it should work.

 

[Guest]

OK -thanks. So based on what you said below - we're back to the original
premise that the "Display As" field IS what will appear in the Recipient's
email - for the most part. . . .

So this field IS important.

In addition - it would seem to me VERY IMPORTANT - that folks know they are
going to lose their "Display As" field when they do an import or export of
their Contacts. Yikes!

At some point during the import / export my client's "Display As" is now
showing email only.

So let me ask you this - how do you set or reset the default for the
"Display As" field? You did say the default should be Name (email) - correct?

We're going to have to go back and manually change thousands of contacts -
but going forward we want it to display the name - even if that includes the
email.

Thanks~!

 

[Karl Timmermans]

There are a variety of fields (Email DisplayAs (EDA) being one of them)
within Outlook that are "derived" fields and different things happen
depending on whether the contact is being added or modified.

The following is a simplistic "generic" overview and not necessarily
applicable to all versions of Outlook or the results may differ in various
versions of Outlook (don't have our reference material handy in terms of
absolute specifics per Outlook version)

Generally it goes something like this for the EDA field for Outlook '2007 as
an example:

#1 - When a contact is "added" via the UI - Outlook automatically generates
the EDA as per format for that version - O'2007 = Name & Email
#2 - If you "Import" via Outlook and don't assign anything to the EDA the
same will occur
#3 - If you "Import" via Outlook and DO assign something to the EDA - the
value from your import file will apply
#4 - If you make a change to the "name" of an existing contact via the UI -
EDA does not change
#5 - If you make a change to the Email Address of an existing contact - the
EDA changes to reflect the new email address and the format of the EDA
reverts to the default format for the version of Outlook you have
#6 - If you manually change the EDA - it will stick until item #5 occurs

Since Outlook doesn't support "updating" pre-existing contacts via the
import wizard - no point going thru that scenario.

However, in short, as soon as an email address is changed - the EDA will
also change regardless as to what it's content may have been. For the
do-it-yourselfer's out there doing anything programmatically, the Outlook
".Save" method will cause the EDA to change if the Email Address value was
changed regardless if a new value was also set for the EDA. A change to the
Email Address will over-ride anything else at the time the contact is
re-saved. There is no way to over-ride what happens when the contact is
saved via the Outlook Object Model. (The Outlook import wizard appears to
use a proprietary import process when importing (saving new contact) data
and hence standard results don't necessarily apply to a given "derived"
field).

Equivalent scenarios apply to the "FileAs" field as another example.

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

 

[Guest]

Thanks

So let me ask you this -

Can you change the default setting for this field?

 

[Karl Timmermans]

In terms of EDA - not aware of any Outlook UI setting that provides for
changing the default.

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

Thanks

So let me ask you this -

Can you change the default setting for this field?

 

[Guest]

Hi Karl,

Thanks for the helpful description below.
I have been struggling with the display name myself - but this time in
relation to linking to MS Access. Here is another VERY important function of
this field.

You can create a link table in MS access that links directly to the outlook
contacts (not import/export but direct link, and I can envoke the outlook
"new contact" form directly from my database for new entries).
The problem is that Access uses the "display as" as the table's primary key.
Hence if a contact only has a name , and say a phone number or postal
address, and no email address, the "display as" field never gets created, and
hence the contact does not display in the link table as it has a null index.

It does not look like there is a way to work around this (besides entering
dummy unique email addresses). Reading the previous posts here it appears to
have caused significant frustration, sufficient to suggest some changes in
future versions (dont know how '07 handles this - I'm on '03)
Just thought I would add my 2 cents worth.

Meg

 

[Karl Timmermans]

Just FYI - the same is true for O'2007 as it is for O'2003 in terms of EDA
creation (or lack thereof) if no email address is entered.

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

Hi Karl,

Thanks for the helpful description below.
I have been struggling with the display name myself - but this time in
relation to linking to MS Access. Here is another VERY important function
of
this field.

You can create a link table in MS access that links directly to the
outlook
contacts (not import/export but direct link, and I can envoke the outlook
"new contact" form directly from my database for new entries).
The problem is that Access uses the "display as" as the table's primary
key.
Hence if a contact only has a name , and say a phone number or postal
address, and no email address, the "display as" field never gets created,
and
hence the contact does not display in the link table as it has a null
index.

It does not look like there is a way to work around this (besides entering
dummy unique email addresses). Reading the previous posts here it appears
to
have caused significant frustration, sufficient to suggest some changes in
future versions (dont know how '07 handles this - I'm on '03)
Just thought I would add my 2 cents worth.

Meg