Modify contact form for linking Master Company

[Jim Frankland]

Originally posted to Outlook.Contacts, but I will post here too to get more
input before I start work...

This is about trying to better handle a company with multiple contacts.

I understand:
A. There is an action button, "New contact from same company".
It only COPIES the current contact company information so
you can modify it for the new contact. If you make a change
to the original company later, the change doesn't populate to
all other cards created "from same company."

B. On the contacts view pane you can view contacts in a
list and use "Group By" then select "Company". You may
then collapse or expand this company group if you don't
want to see all the individual contacts for each company.
Trying to get one company per line... But, if you use the
collapsed version, you loose all the column data in lue of
viewing the {"company name" (x items)} group title.

C. There is a CONTACT button at the bottom of each card so
that one may link several contacts together as a group.
Other than a place to "link" these contacts, if you look there
again, what constructive use is it? It is ONLY ONE SIDED.
If you have XYZ company. John Doe and Joe User.
You go into John Doe's card and click contact and add Joe
User and save. Now if you go into Joe User, SURPRISE
contact John Doe isn't there...

SO, what I want to know; before I go deep into this task I am
thinking about creating.... Am I missing something? Is there
an easier way?

I am thinking about modifying the contact form.to add a check
box for MASTER COMPANY. If this is checked, then the
company name and phone number are editable and this card
becomes the MASTER of all cards for the same company.

Then, if the check box is unchecked, the user may LINK a
second, third, etc. card to the first MASTER card. The
company name, address, phone, etc. are copied to this
card. If the MASTER card for the company is changed,
the changed information is automatically copied to all
LINKed cards.

The user may then create a new VIEW on just MASTER
cards. This way only one company shows up in the card
display or list, and all the column data is shown.

Any thoughts? Did I miss something?

Jim.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Re C: You should be seeing reciprocal links. That's the way Outlook has
always worked.

You've thought this through pretty well. I think some of the existing CRM
applications for Outlook use a similar approach.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Unfortunately, this issue seems to be rare enough -- yours is the only case
I've heard of -- to have no ready solution. Running Help | Detect and Repair
might be worthwhile. You also might consider filing a support incident with
Microsoft to get this issue into their database.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of
Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers