Outlook 2003 Business Fax Problem

[Alex.Marchand]

I've been looking all over to find a solution to my problem, without
any success. Here is the situation.

We recently upgrade our office suite from 97 standard to 2003 standard.

One of our user has a list of contacts(around 400-500), some with an
email address and fax number, some without an email address but with a
fax number. The contacts are all divide in categories. When sending a
email message to one of those categories, they want the contacts with
an email address to receive the message in there mailbox and the
contacts without an email address to receive the message at their fax
number. This use to work fine previous to the upgrade(Outlook 98).

Now whenever they select a group of contacts, right-click on the
selected group, and go to "new message to contacts", outlook will only
resolve the ones with an email address, and will only put the names of
the contact with a fax number(i.e Homer Simpson and not Homer Simpson
(Business Fax)).

However, if you open a new message and click the "To" button, then
"Select Name from the" and select contacts, then select any one of
those contacts, it will resolve the business fax(i.e Homer
Simpson(Business Fax)). The problem with this is that the contacts
appear in alphabetical order and not categorized.

I've also notice that any contact names that appear in our Global
Address List, will not resolve the fax number either.

I've log on with my account and I'm able to create a contact with only
a fax number and it will resolve it properly.

I'm wondering if anybody has encountered such a situation or if anybody
as a solution to this problem??

Thank you

Alex Marchand
Network Administrator
MSCE 2000

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Clarify what you mean by "group" of Contacts.
Clarify which information store is used.

 

[Alex.Marchand]

What I mean by "group" is when the select multiple contacts.

We're using Exchange 2003.

Clarify what you mean by "group" of Contacts.
Clarify which information store is used.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

I've been looking all over to find a solution to my problem, without
any success. Here is the situation.

We recently upgrade our office suite from 97 standard to 2003 standard.

One of our user has a list of contacts(around 400-500), some with an
email address and fax number, some without an email address but with a
fax number. The contacts are all divide in categories. When sending a
email message to one of those categories, they want the contacts with
an email address to receive the message in there mailbox and the
contacts without an email address to receive the message at their fax
number. This use to work fine previous to the upgrade(Outlook 98).

Now whenever they select a group of contacts, right-click on the
selected group, and go to "new message to contacts", outlook will only
resolve the ones with an email address, and will only put the names of
the contact with a fax number(i.e Homer Simpson and not Homer Simpson
(Business Fax)).

However, if you open a new message and click the "To" button, then
"Select Name from the" and select contacts, then select any one of
those contacts, it will resolve the business fax(i.e Homer
Simpson(Business Fax)). The problem with this is that the contacts
appear in alphabetical order and not categorized.

I've also notice that any contact names that appear in our Global
Address List, will not resolve the fax number either.

I've log on with my account and I'm able to create a contact with only
a fax number and it will resolve it properly.

I'm wondering if anybody has encountered such a situation or if anybody
as a solution to this problem??

Thank you

Alex Marchand
Network Administrator
MSCE 2000

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Odd. I've not seen any similar reports.
Did you recently migrate this Contact Data? I wonder if something might have
happened to the Contact Record. Have you looked to see if the fax numbers
are resolved in a Contact whose fax number is not picked up with the New
Message to Contact action?
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

What I mean by "group" is when the select multiple contacts.

We're using Exchange 2003.

Clarify what you mean by "group" of Contacts.
Clarify which information store is used.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]

I've been looking all over to find a solution to my problem, without
any success. Here is the situation.

We recently upgrade our office suite from 97 standard to 2003 standard.

One of our user has a list of contacts(around 400-500), some with an
email address and fax number, some without an email address but with a
fax number. The contacts are all divide in categories. When sending a
email message to one of those categories, they want the contacts with
an email address to receive the message in there mailbox and the
contacts without an email address to receive the message at their fax
number. This use to work fine previous to the upgrade(Outlook 98).

Now whenever they select a group of contacts, right-click on the
selected group, and go to "new message to contacts", outlook will only
resolve the ones with an email address, and will only put the names of
the contact with a fax number(i.e Homer Simpson and not Homer Simpson
(Business Fax)).

However, if you open a new message and click the "To" button, then
"Select Name from the" and select contacts, then select any one of
those contacts, it will resolve the business fax(i.e Homer
Simpson(Business Fax)). The problem with this is that the contacts
appear in alphabetical order and not categorized.

I've also notice that any contact names that appear in our Global
Address List, will not resolve the fax number either.

I've log on with my account and I'm able to create a contact with only
a fax number and it will resolve it properly.

I'm wondering if anybody has encountered such a situation or if anybody
as a solution to this problem??

Thank you

Alex Marchand
Network Administrator
MSCE 2000

 

[Alex.Marchand]

The Contact Data as been there for a while. We did upgrade from
exchange 5.5 to 2003 about 4 months ago, but that didn't affect them
until we upgraded to office 2003.

Yes, if you open a new message and click the "To" button, then
"Select Name from the" and select contacts, then select any one of
those contacts, it will resolve the business fax.

With that said, I was thinking of creating some distribution lists in
their contacts folder, but if you make any changes to any of the
contacts, it will not update in the distribution list, even though you
select the "update now" feature.

I've also found this article
"http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;287623&Product=out",
I'm not sure this will help but i'm gonna try it now.

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

That is definitely the thing to try next if you have autocompletion enabled.
Beyond the addition of autocompletion, I know of no other changes to Outlook
2003 that would produce this problem, and I ran into it in none of my
testing of Outlook 2003 with fax.
That said, however, I've always seen somewhat inconsistent results with Fax
and Exchange in the same profile. You might also try making sure that the
Fax Transport is at the top of the delivery order in these profiles.

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

I noticed one other thing in Outlook 2003 that is different than the problem
you are having but might be related.
As you know, each fax field generates a separate entry in the Outlook
Address Book (one each for Home, Business, Other). When I select a fax
recipient from the Outlook Address Book, it remains blind to that field and
prompts me for which address I want, Home, Business, or Other.
I've long suspected that this unusual behavior has to do with the way
Outlook now accesses the NK2 file, but none of that has ever been
documented. Moreover, since these issues involve fax, I doubt they will ever
be addressed.