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Ed Hansberry
02-06-2003, 08:01 AM
I am going to take some heat from my fellow MVPs, Pocket PC Thoughts Team Members and faithful readers on this, but in the <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7813">ActiveSync thread</a> a few days ago and several times a month in the newsgroup, I see the question "How do I synchronize contacts in subfolders?" Well, you can't. <b><i>And</i></b> you shouldn't. Why? Categories offer far more powerful filtering options than subfolders. Read on to find out the advantages of categories and how you can do mass conversions on thousands and thousands of contacts in seconds.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/article-categories/showcategories.gif" /><br /><!><br />Many users of Outlook store contacts in a variety of folders. They have folders for business contacts, personal contacts, employees, etc. Why? Outlook encourages the use of folders. Email definitely goes in folders. It is your filing system. Outlook makes it drop dead simple to simply add another folder for another group.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/article-categories/newfolder.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 1: Creating a new folder in Outlook</i><br /><br />However, Outlook has always supported categories too, and categories can be far more powerful. For example, John Smith, an employee of Cisco Systems, may be a supplier and a customer. Do you put him in the Suppliers folder, the Customers folder or copy him to both folders? With categories, you simply check off Supplier and Customer and save the contact. Now when you filter contacts, if you filter by either Supplier or Customer, John Smith will be in both lists.<br /><br /><b><span>Desktop Outlook and Categories</span></b><br />How do you get Outlook on the desktop to do this? When you install Outlook, it defaults to an alphabetical card view for Contacts. Nice for a few contacts, but unwieldy when you have several hundred or several thousand contacts. In Outlook, select your Contacts folder. Select View|By Company from the Outlook menu. This is the method used by many people to sort contacts. You can also create custom views and group any way you like, but let's keep this simple. Now that you're looking at Contacts sorted by company, you need a Categories column. I don't recall if this is showing by default or not, so let's ensure it's there. Right-click on any column and select "Field Chooser". Now, grab Category and drag it to your column headings. If you don't see it listed, then it's already a heading and you just need to scroll left or right to see it. Finally, you want to group by Categories. We are already grouping by Company and don't want to lose that. To do this, right-click on Category in the column header and select "Group By This Field". You should see something similar to the box below in the upper left corner of your Contacts folder now.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/article-categories/grouping.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 2: Grouping by company and category</i><br /><br />Now, to make this really useful, click and drag the "Category" box over to the left of Company. Now, look at all of your contacts. They are by Category then by Company. Click on Supplier. See Cisco Systems, John Smith? Now click on the Customers category. There he is again - Cisco Systems, John Smith. But it's only one contact entry, shown in two places. Very cool. 8)<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/article-categories/differentviews.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 3: Same Cisco Contact, shown in Customers and Suppliers!</i><br /><br /><b><span>Assigning Categories Fast</span></b><br />Now you see how cool it is to have these groupings in Outlook. How do you assign categories to the 800 contacts spread among three or four folders? Outlook makes this easy. Open one of the folders and press CTRL+A to select all of the contacts in that folder. Right-click on the contacts and select "Categories...". This could take a few seconds if you have a lot of contacts. When the category window pops up, select the category you want to assign them to. If it doesn't appear in the list, select the Master Category List button and create a new category. Repeat this for all of your folders then move everything to the main Contacts folder in Outlook by pressing CTRL+A in a folder and then dragging and dropping them.<br /><br />When picking multiple contacts to assign categories, you need to be mindful of the state of the checkbox. There are three phases. If the checkbox is empty, it means no contacts in your current selection are assigned to it. If it's checked but grey, it means that some contacts in your selection are assigned to it. It could be one, all but one, or any number in between. If it's checked and white, it means every contact in your selection is assigned to it.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/article-categories/categorycheckbox.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 4: The three states of check-boxes</i><br /><br /><b><span>Getting it Onto the Pocket PC</span></b><br />Now we need to replicate all this cool functionality on the Pocket PC. First, sync your device. Ok, that's it. You're done! Your Pocket PC now has all of your contacts segregated by category. Open up Contacts. In the upper left it says "All Contacts". Tap that and you will see the category drop down. Select Customers and there's John Smith. Press "Customers" at the top to select a new category. Select Suppliers. There he is again - same contact.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/article-categories/contact-customer.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 5: Our contact in one category...</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/article-categories/contact-supplier.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 6: ...and our contact in a different cateogry</i><br /><br />Advanced contact management applications like <a href="http://www.pocketinformant.com">Pocket Informant</a> and <a href="http://www.developerone.com">Agenda Fusion</a> will put little icons next to the contacts if you desire. Here you can see I have selected "Customers", but I have that little shipping truck next to John Smith. That tells me he is also a supplier.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/article-categories/contact-pi.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 7: Pocket Informant filtering in action</i><br /><br />Note that you can assign more than two categories to a contact. So John Smith could be Family, Customer, Supplier and Christmas Card if you like. Likewise, you can filter by more than one category. You could pull up all contacts that were Customer and Christmas Card to see what customers you have flagged to also receive a Christmas card.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/article-categories/multiplecategories.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 8: Selecting multiple categories</i><br /><br /><b><span>Caveats</span></b><br />What about public folders if you are in an Exchange environment? Well, this doesn't help much, or does it? You can't sync to a public folder, which is not a subfolder at all. You can sync Inbox subfolders with Pocket PC 2002 devices, but that doesn't let you sync to public email folders. So how can you get contacts from your public folders to your Pocket PC?<br /><br />1. Create a new Contacts subfolder in Outlook<br />2. Copy all contacts from the public contacts folder to the new subfolder<br />3. Assign a category to all contacts in that subfolder - press CTRL+A, right-click and select Categories; I would recommend making a new category in the master list, "Employees Public" for example<br />4. Move these contacts to your main contacts folder and sync<br /><br />Now, to update the contacts, simply go to your contacts folder, only show the "Employees Public" category and delete all of them and repeat the four steps above.<br /><br />This is a good workaround, especially for public folders that tend to remain relatively stagnant. You could refresh it once a month or every few weeks. It's less useful if your public folders are updated daily or even several times a day. You could enlist a VBA expert to write a script for you to do this automatically.<br /><br /><b><span>Wrapping it up</span></b><br />If you are one who uses subfolders for contacts on your desktop, I hope you see how this can boost your productivity and offer more power in selecting contacts. I know there will be some circumstances where subfolders make sense, but I think you'll see that's pretty rare. I am sure contact subfolder sync is high on the list of things to look at for the Microsoft ActiveSync team, but I, for one, won't use it. :) Categories are just too powerful.

Sslixtis
02-06-2003, 09:27 AM
Well Ed, as usual you are right on the money! I couldn't agree more. :wink: Now we can both get flamed :beer:

Down8
02-06-2003, 09:33 AM
Well, I never used subfolders - maybe b/c my contact list is less than 200 entries, or b/c I don't rely on my device for that too often - but I do now intend to try out categories.

Thanks for the article - hope it doesn't draw too much heat.

-bZj

DrtyBlvd
02-06-2003, 09:46 AM
Agree 100% with your premise Ed. - I've used Cats forever, as I never knew you could actually have different contact folders until a year or two ago!

A caveat I think you should have detailed regarding deletion of contacts/whatever when done by catagory - you do mention it's "one contact shown in two places", but I would scream this bit - rather than leave it as a subtlety - :?:

If you delete the contact "John Smith" from the catagory 'Customers', you will delete him from the 'Suppliers' catagory as well - In other words remember to de-assign catagories, as opposed to just thinking you can delete a contact from one particular one but retain any other catagories the item may have been associated with....

I learnt the hard way I'm afraid :roll: :lol:

Adam
02-06-2003, 11:46 AM
I use categories and wouldn't even consider using folders. However one thing to note is that (in Outlook at least) categories are just a comma delimited string. I have had categories being "created" by Outlook, my tyoing and/or synchronisation by there being two spaces after a comma, or in one case a comma being left out. However this is easy to spot in Outlook in the "by category" view in Contacts.

jwf
02-06-2003, 12:02 PM
Shame Microsoft couldn't follow their own best practices (as usual) and enable Outlook Notes categories to be sync'ed to the Pocket PC too :-(

John

Philip Colmer
02-06-2003, 12:42 PM
Nice article, Ed.

I use categories quite heavily on both Contacts and Tasks, to keep personal information separated from corporate information.

There does appear to be a problem with ActiveSync, though, in that the first time you synchronise, you have to synchronise everything before you then get a list of categories to allow you to filter out stuff you don't want synchronised.

If you see what I mean :lol:

--Philip

Flaviano
02-06-2003, 02:10 PM
I prefer folder in the desktop edition because when I write an email, and select the recipient from the entire list, I can filter the different folder from the combobox in the right-up bottom of the "Chose recipient" window.
If I use the categories I can't use to filter in the "Chose recipient" window :cry: .

Flaviano[/img]

Adam
02-06-2003, 02:15 PM
Shame Microsoft couldn't follow their own best practices (as usual) and enable Outlook Notes categories to be sync'ed to the Pocket PC too :-(

John

Yeah, I think the notes system in general is half the job done.

Ed Hansberry
02-06-2003, 02:16 PM
I prefer folder in the desktop edition because when I write an email, and select the recipient from the entire list, I can filter the different folder from the combobox in the right-up bottom of the "Chose recipient" window.
If I use the categories I can't use to filter in the "Chose recipient" window :cry: .

Flaviano[/img]
Don't use the To: button. Just type in some of their last or first name. If I were in your contacts, you could type "hans" and then tab down to the message and start. Outlook will fill it out for you or ask if you wanted Hansberry or Hanson.

You can do multiple too. If you type in hans;smi;jone;willi it would espand to Hansberry, Ed; Smith, Jeff; Jones, Mark; Williamson, Alice.

I never ever use the To: button unless I am not sure who I am sending it to and want to browse my names - and then having them in one folder makes that easier.

DARKMON
02-06-2003, 02:52 PM
I too have evolved over time using cats. I just went in to see how many I have and its over 80! So I guess I'm asking, seeing, who my have the most cats.

scottmag
02-06-2003, 03:30 PM
I come here to neither flame nor praise. But rather for something unexpected.

Ed, you have converted me.

It was actually your example from the "simple" article about the dentist/neighbor (or something). I went back to my unruly list of hundreds of business and personal contacts in my Palm m515 and decided it was time to make use of the Categories feature. Then I realized that you are right. I have contacts who are customers, suppliers, AND friends. And I see no way to assign multiple categories to a contact even with my new version of Agendus.

So, my Dell Axim has been ordered. Since I am a Mac user and free from the tyranny of Outlook, I will have to make sure PocketMac can sync everything correctly. Then I will give it an honest try.

Scott

GadgetDave
02-06-2003, 03:59 PM
Hooray Ed! :D

I started being a categories evangelist with messages several years ago because I wanted to be able to file emails under more than one topic. They work great for contacts too. The only way to go.

alex22
02-06-2003, 04:04 PM
Partially agree with Ed. I used category for contacts. But I do realize that category has its own limitations. Category is more or less logically like a single-level folder structure with mirror items on each "folder" if an item belongs to more than one cat. When I do multiple level of project management, in some cases, I do need multiple level of folder structure which cat. cannot provide. Say, I have a big, long-term project proj1, which consists of sub-projects, proj11, proj12, proj13 and so on. If you want to quickly find all the contacts, tasks related to those sub *or even sub-sub) projects, you have to create a lot more cat. And it will be a nightmare to filter through such a huge list of cat to find the info related to a specific sub project.

So I think category and folders are both needed and Microsft should support both features in ActiveSync.

ux4484
02-06-2003, 04:34 PM
I distinctly remember you covering this not only here but at daBuzz waaaay back. Coming from the Helio and Palm, you have no choice but catagories.....so to most converts this would seem the logical (if not only)way to go. The real (bonus) power comes (as you clearly instuct) from sharing members in catagories wich makes it so much more useful.

This is a good item for an article Ed. When I got my Dell, I started looking for your previous threads on it, but it was faster to just hash it out myself, but it is nice to have it in one place. I've seen reams of stuff on hacks and miniscule details of Palm's PIM's, nice to see someone as neurotic about PPC's ;)

thenikjones
02-06-2003, 06:00 PM
Partially agree with Ed. I used category for contacts. But I do realize that category has its own limitations. Category is more or less logically like a single-level folder structure with mirror items on each "folder" if an item belongs to more than one cat. When I do multiple level of project management, in some cases, I do need multiple level of folder structure which cat. cannot provide. Say, I have a big, long-term project proj1, which consists of sub-projects, proj11, proj12, proj13 and so on. If you want to quickly find all the contacts, tasks related to those sub *or even sub-sub) projects, you have to create a lot more cat. And it will be a nightmare to filter through such a huge list of cat to find the info related to a specific sub project.

So I think category and folders are both needed and Microsft should support both features in ActiveSync.

Alex,

I'm starting to implement "GEtting Things Done" using Outlook and PocketPC. One idea is to have Projects as Contacts, then assign all it's tasks and sub-porjects to that Contact. The Contact will then keep as history of all it's activities.

More details can be found at: http://home.attbi.com/~whkratz/index.htm

Mark from Canada
02-06-2003, 06:19 PM
I prefer folder in the desktop edition because when I write an email, and select the recipient from the entire list, I can filter the different folder from the combobox in the right-up bottom of the "Chose recipient" window.
If I use the categories I can't use to filter in the "Chose recipient" window :cry: .

Flaviano[/img]
Don't use the To: button. Just type in some of their last or first name. If I were in your contacts, you could type "hans" and then tab down to the message and start. Outlook will fill it out for you or ask if you wanted Hansberry or Hanson.

You can do multiple too. If you type in hans;smi;jone;willi it would espand to Hansberry, Ed; Smith, Jeff; Jones, Mark; Williamson, Alice.

I never ever use the To: button unless I am not sure who I am sending it to and want to browse my names - and then having them in one folder makes that easier.

I too have subfolders for now. Sometimes I need to send e-mail to everyone in a subfolder, and having to manually type the names of 50 or so contacts is out of the question - even partial names.
It might be possible to still use categories in this case if you assign all the members of a particular category also to a group. Then you could e-mail the group...
Too bad Microsoft didn't implement "Mail to category" somewhere.

Mark

Ed Hansberry
02-06-2003, 06:28 PM
I too have subfolders for now. Sometimes I need to send e-mail to everyone in a subfolder, and having to manually type the names of 50 or so contacts is out of the question - even partial names.
It might be possible to still use categories in this case if you assign all the members of a particular category also to a group. Then you could e-mail the group...
Too bad Microsoft didn't implement "Mail to category" somewhere.
Ahhh... but that is what Distribution Lists in Outlook are for. :)

Of course, Dist lists don't sync to the Pocket PC, but then neither do your sub-folders. At least with the category/dist list combo, your contacts are on the Pocket PC and you have powerful category filtering on the desktop and Pocket PC.

ianbjor
02-06-2003, 06:42 PM
Shame Microsoft couldn't follow their own best practices (as usual) and enable Outlook Notes categories to be sync'ed to the Pocket PC too :-(

John

Yeah, I think the notes system in general is half the job done.

Agreed. The very first piece of software I bought for my PocketPC is HPC Notes Std Edition (http://www.phatware.com/hpcnotes/hpcnotes3std.html) - it syncs your notes from Outlook and maintains categories and other info as well. Much more powerful than the standard notes handling.

Janak Parekh
02-06-2003, 07:17 PM
Then I realized that you are right. I have contacts who are customers, suppliers, AND friends. And I see no way to assign multiple categories to a contact even with my new version of Agendus.

So, my Dell Axim has been ordered.
Wow! Ed, kudos for converting a diehard Palm user. ;)

Seriously: does anyone know if Palm has multiple-categories-per-record slated for OS 6? This is one of those critical must-have features for me ever since I switched to the Pocket PC. I don't know how I managed with single categorization on Palms for years.

--janak

brianchris
02-06-2003, 08:11 PM
This is possibly one of those life changing articles.

How? I’d always used Contact sub-folders, for no other reason than that’s the way I’d always done things. Yea, I knew the “solution” to Contact sub-folders not being synchronized on PPC’s was to use categories instead, but that would mean I’d have to change how I did things, so I didn’t change….until today.

Your Article Ed was so well written with so many compelling points, I couldn’t ignore the functionality of contact categories anymore. I just got done assigning meaningful and powerful categories to my 200+ contacts, and can’t believe the difference! You’ve converted me as well (not from Palm to PPC mind you :wink:, but from Contact sub-folders to categories). Already gone are the days of “damn, the contact I needed on my PPC is sitting in a sub-folder on one of the two computers I synchronize with.”

For what its worth, instead of sorting by “Categories” then “company name” (as in your instructions), I’m sorting by “Categories” then “File As”….works just as well, even better considering personal (friends, family) contacts that don’t have anything in their Company Name field.

Thank you for the great article, and hopefully other people will see the difference contact categories make.

-Brian

dartman
02-06-2003, 08:28 PM
I've been using categories for my tasks for a while but I never took the time or thought through the advantages on the contacts.

You did a great job with the explanation; enough to make me take the time and clean up my contact list.

Yet another reason to visit the Thoughts site frequently.

Thanks for your effort, Ed.

dart

nz0eBoy
02-06-2003, 08:38 PM
I too have subfolders for now. Sometimes I need to send e-mail to everyone in a subfolder, and having to manually type the names of 50 or so contacts is out of the question - even partial names.
It might be possible to still use categories in this case if you assign all the members of a particular category also to a group. Then you could e-mail the group...
Too bad Microsoft didn't implement "Mail to category" somewhere.
Ahhh... but that is what Distribution Lists in Outlook are for. :)

Of course, Dist lists don't sync to the Pocket PC, but then neither do your sub-folders. At least with the category/dist list combo, your contacts are on the Pocket PC and you have powerful category filtering on the desktop and Pocket PC.

And once they are on your PPC you can select a category, bring up the keyboard, tap 'ctrl' then 'a', which selects all the contacts for that category, then just tap and hold on anyone of the selected contacts and then select "Send E-mail to Contact..." from the menu and voila, a new e-mail with all the contacts already filled in.

mclaugh
02-06-2003, 08:47 PM
One disadvantage to this view is that you cannot use your keyboard to quickly jump to a letter in the alphabet. I have about 400 contacts, and the list grows constantly- while I have been using categories for a while, I continue to view my entire list using view:address cards. From there, you can either use the letter shortcuts at the right, or just type the first letter of the last name using the keyboard.
In my opinion, it would be best to have a drop down box in the address card view for categories.
Other than that, good article.

Ed Hansberry
02-06-2003, 09:00 PM
One disadvantage to this view is that you cannot use your keyboard to quickly jump to a letter in the alphabet. I have about 400 contacts, and the list grows constantly- while I have been using categories for a while, I continue to view my entire list using view:address cards. From there, you can either use the letter shortcuts at the right, or just type the first letter of the last name using the keyboard.
In my opinion, it would be best to have a drop down box in the address card view for categories.
Other than that, good article.
I just type their name in the quickfind in Outlook 2002 from wherever. No need to look up an indidual from the Contacts folder. I think Outlook 2000 and 98 could do this from the Outlook Today page.

mclaugh
02-06-2003, 09:15 PM
I just type their name in the quickfind in Outlook 2002 from wherever. No need to look up an indidual from the Contacts folder. I think Outlook 2000 and 98 could do this from the Outlook Today page.

Wow, another good tip! Ed, you've not only convinced me to start using multiple categories (up until now, I've only assigned one per contact), but you've also shown me a great shortcut!
Thanks.

mmidgley
02-06-2003, 10:36 PM
Ok, so my contacts have been categorized since the beginning--including multiple categories per contact. Now, what I want to see is the Contacts application actually let me USE the categories to my advantage. For instance, right now the only way to use Categories on PocketPC is to view ALL contacts or a list of Categories OR'd together. I want to be able to specify OR, AND, or NOT operations. For instance if I have "Friends", "Business", "Entertainment", and "Christmas Cards" categories, I want to be able to get a list of:

"Friends" and NOT "Business"
"Friends" OR "Business"
"Friends" AND "Business"
("Friends" AND "Entertainment") OR ("Christmas Cards" AND "Business")

I'm not sure how this would be implemented in the UI without forcing me to use a SQL select statement, but I think it could be done.

m.

ctmagnus
02-06-2003, 11:51 PM
Don't use the To: button. Just type in some of their last or first name. If I were in your contacts, you could type "hans" and then tab down to the message and start. Outlook will fill it out for you or ask if you wanted Hansberry or Hanson.

You can do multiple too. If you type in hans;smi;jone;willi it would espand to Hansberry, Ed; Smith, Jeff; Jones, Mark; Williamson, Alice.

I never ever use the To: button unless I am not sure who I am sending it to and want to browse my names - and then having them in one folder makes that easier.

That works for me somtimes; however, some contacts don't work that way for me. When I click the To: button in these sutuations, the default view is Personal Address Book.

It worked correctly for me a couple of weeks ago when I was using Win98SE and Outlook 2000 SP1, but I since blew away the harddrive and installed Windows 2000 SP1, upgraded to SP3, installed Office XP and upgraded to SP1 then SP2.

Ed Hansberry
02-07-2003, 12:01 AM
That works for me somtimes; however, some contacts don't work that way for me. When I click the To: button in these sutuations, the default view is Personal Address Book.

It worked correctly for me a couple of weeks ago when I was using Win98SE and Outlook 2000 SP1, but I since blew away the harddrive and installed Windows 2000 SP1, upgraded to SP3, installed Office XP and upgraded to SP1 then SP2.
Right-click on the Contacts folder and select Properties. On the Outlook Address Book, check the "Show this folder..." box.

I'd then remove PAB from the listing.

Tools|Email Accounts|View/Change existing directory. The only thing that *needs* to be there as long as everything is in Contacts or an Exchange Server GAL is the Outlook Address Book. The Personal Address Book is redundant and, IMHO, worthless for Outlook users.

Flaviano
02-07-2003, 12:53 AM
I read all posts, but I think that folders are better.
And I sincronize with my e740 with Outlook PCS http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2002/opcs.aspx with no problems: folders become Categories in the e740.

Flaviano

ctmagnus
02-07-2003, 06:06 AM
Right-click on the Contacts folder and select Properties. On the Outlook Address Book, check the "Show this folder..." box.

I'd then remove PAB from the listing.

Tools|Email Accounts|View/Change existing directory. The only thing that *needs* to be there as long as everything is in Contacts or an Exchange Server GAL is the Outlook Address Book. The Personal Address Book is redundant and, IMHO, worthless for Outlook users.

I did that all before and it didn't work as you described so I posted. It works now, though! :way to go: Except some contacts still don't show up in the To: box after I tab to the next field although I can click the To: box and pick them. :confused totally:

Adam
02-07-2003, 03:11 PM
Agreed. The very first piece of software I bought for my PocketPC is HPC Notes Std Edition (http://www.phatware.com/hpcnotes/hpcnotes3std.html) - it syncs your notes from Outlook and maintains categories and other info as well. Much more powerful than the standard notes handling.

Thanks for that. Will check it out. :way to go:

Jason Dunn
02-07-2003, 04:28 PM
Except some contacts still don't show up in the To: box after I tab to the next field although I can click the To: box and pick them. :confused totally:

It takes several seconds - just go on to start writing your message, and watch what happens... :D

SassKwatch
02-07-2003, 08:20 PM
I'd been a happy Category usin' camper for some time. But ran into a problem with their use in Agenda Fusion which, initially, I thought was an AF problem. So I started this PocketNow thread (http://discuss.pocketnow.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12414) in the Developer One support forum.

After hearing their explanation, it seems the problem I'm having is actually a result of how Pocket Outlook stores Category info. If anyone would like to take a buzz thru the above thread and offer any thoughts/suggestions/workarounds, I'd be highly appreciative.

Thanks!

ctmagnus
02-08-2003, 02:26 AM
It takes several seconds - just go on to start writing your message, and watch what happens... :D

Maybe several seconds for you but I'm running this on a P200MMX, which equates to several several seconds for me. :)

Ed Hansberry
02-08-2003, 02:32 AM
It takes several seconds - just go on to start writing your message, and watch what happens... :D

Maybe several seconds for you but I'm running this on a P200MMX, which equates to several several seconds for me. :)

Heh heh. Don't worry about it. Tab on down and fill out the subject and email. If it still hasn't finished searching, just hit send. it will force it to resolve and will pull up a dialog if there are multiple possibilities - hans working for Hansberry or Hanson for example.

greenup
02-10-2003, 06:44 AM
Ok, so my contacts have been categorized since the beginning--including multiple categories per contact. Now, what I want to see is the Contacts application actually let me USE the categories to my advantage. For instance, right now the only way to use Categories on PocketPC is to view ALL contacts or a list of Categories OR'd together. I want to be able to specify OR, AND, or NOT operations. For instance if I have "Friends", "Business", "Entertainment", and "Christmas Cards" categories, I want to be able to get a list of:

"Friends" and NOT "Business"
"Friends" OR "Business"
"Friends" AND "Business"
("Friends" AND "Entertainment") OR ("Christmas Cards" AND "Business")

I completely agree that "OR" is not the operation that I would most prefer; I would *also* like it, but "AND" is what makes more sense, and would be more useful to me. I've looked pretty closely at agenda fusion and pocket informant, but they do not include this functionality either, sadly, because that would probably be compelling.

If you hear of anything that _will_ do it, let me know.
greenup

ctmagnus
02-10-2003, 06:56 AM
I completely agree that "OR" is not the operation that I would most prefer; I would *also* like it, but "AND" is what makes more sense, and would be more useful to me. I've looked pretty closely at agenda fusion and pocket informant, but they do not include this functionality either, sadly, because that would probably be compelling.

If you hear of anything that _will_ do it, let me know.
greenup

I haven't used AF for a while but PI let's you set up custom views so you can have, say, three categories displayed and hide the rest.

fwiw, I cannot see any use for OR in a situation like this. :confused totally:

briandeem
02-10-2003, 07:02 PM
This enables you to sync your contacts with public folders.

Brian

greenup
02-17-2003, 07:24 PM
I completely agree that "OR" is not the operation that I would most prefer; I would *also* like it, but "AND" is what makes more sense, and would be more useful to me. I've looked pretty closely at agenda fusion and pocket informant, but they do not include this functionality either, sadly, because that would probably be compelling.

If you hear of anything that _will_ do it, let me know.
greenup

I haven't used AF for a while but PI let's you set up custom views so you can have, say, three categories displayed and hide the rest.

fwiw, I cannot see any use for OR in a situation like this. :confused totally:

Are the "custom views" a crippleware feature of pocket informant? I believe I tried to play with the "manage views" of that product, but was unable to get it to work; and I wasn't going to pay money unless I could tell that the product was going to do useful things. (yes, I agree it does some quite useful things, but on my current budget, and perception of what it did, not enough for me.)

If "AND" is one of those things, though, It'll probably make my shopping list very soon though.

(ps: categories. Maybe I just have my categories set up funny, but I have several that are "tri-mode", making an OR more useful. like "close|normal|distant"; I may want to view a list of that contains all of my close friends and my normal friends)(of course, ANDing with friends would make a VERY complex query for poor pocket outlook's brain.)

ctmagnus
02-17-2003, 10:04 PM
Are the "custom views" a crippleware feature of pocket informant? I believe I tried to play with the "manage views" of that product, but was unable to get it to work; and I wasn't going to pay money unless I could tell that the product was going to do useful things.

It took me a while to figure it out, but once I did I was amazed at what I could do. With my schedule I only have two views set and it's "lots quicker" to set the desired view using that instead of using filters. With filters I always had to select the category(ies) I wanted to hide, which actually showed them, then tell PI to hide the current categories.

SassKwatch
02-18-2003, 06:36 AM
I haven't used AF for a while but PI let's you set up custom views so you can have, say, three categories displayed and hide the rest.

AF does have a 'MultiSelect' option within it's 'Filtering' for categories. Select as many or few from your list as you like.

Would this capability not essentially solve the 'AND' need? Or, am I missing somehting?

ctmagnus
02-18-2003, 10:17 PM
AF does have a 'MultiSelect' option within it's 'Filtering' for categories. Select as many or few from your list as you like.

Would this capability not essentially solve the 'AND' need? Or, am I missing somehting?

Oui, you are correct.

greenup
02-20-2003, 05:54 PM
Are the "custom views" a crippleware feature of pocket informant? I believe I tried to play with the "manage views" of that product, but was unable to get it to work; and I wasn't going to pay money unless I could tell that the product was going to do useful things.

It took me a while to figure it out, but once I did I was amazed at what I could do. With my schedule I only have two views set and it's "lots quicker" to set the desired view using that instead of using filters. With filters I always had to select the category(ies) I wanted to hide, which actually showed them, then tell PI to hide the current categories.

OK, I reinstalled Pocket Informant, and figured out how to make a custom view, etc. but I still have not found "AND" functionality in PocketInformant.
They have a "Multiselect", but it does the same brain-dead "OR" thing that Pocket Outlook does. There is a choice to "hide" the selected items, but that can't be twisted to do the same thing. (unless the categories that you have all have mutually exclusive options. mine aren't)(Limited Example: I have friends, coworkers, church, HeadOfHousehold. How can I get friends that are also headofhousehold? if I select "coworkers, church" and do the "hide" checkbox, I wind up eliminating people who may be "church, friends, headofhousehold")

I will go back & try agenda fusion's multiselect also, but I thought it gave the same silly, frustrating results.
-greenup

ctmagnus
02-21-2003, 06:51 AM
OK, I reinstalled Pocket Informant, and figured out how to make a custom view, etc. but I still have not found "AND" functionality in PocketInformant.
They have a "Multiselect", but it does the same brain-dead "OR" thing that Pocket Outlook does. There is a choice to "hide" the selected items, but that can't be twisted to do the same thing. (unless the categories that you have all have mutually exclusive options. mine aren't)(Limited Example: I have friends, coworkers, church, HeadOfHousehold. How can I get friends that are also headofhousehold? if I select "coworkers, church" and do the "hide" checkbox, I wind up eliminating people who may be "church, friends, headofhousehold")

-greenup

I haven't looked at it too extensively; it may well be that I'm not doing it the same way you are. I tend to assign one category to an item with the occasional exception, these exceptions being what you are running into.

Ed Hansberry
02-21-2003, 01:30 PM
I haven't looked at it too extensively; it may well be that I'm not doing it the same way you are. I tend to assign one category to an item with the occasional exception, these exceptions being what you are running into.
PI does an OR, not and AND unfortunately.

Ed Hansberry
02-21-2003, 08:32 PM
Guys, the PIMs on a Pocket PC can't do advanced filtering. When setting up a mail merge or using Access or another database to query your contacts, you can get into the advanced AND, OR, NOT, XOR, whatever.

If you want this functionality in Pocket Informant or Agenda Fusion, you should email them - as I have. :)

greenup
02-21-2003, 09:03 PM
Guys, the PIMs on a Pocket PC can't do advanced filtering. When setting up a mail merge or using Access or another database to query your contacts, you can get into the advanced AND, OR, NOT, XOR, whatever.

If you want this functionality in Pocket Informant or Agenda Fusion, you should email them - as I have. :)

I was just asking about the filtering you suggested in the original article was available.
You could pull up all contacts that were Customer and Christmas Card to see what customers you have flagged to also receive a Christmas card.
That can only be parsed as "AND". This paragraph is in the section on the PocketPC.

But even the Desktop version of outlook is poor. Even making a custom view with advanced filtering will not result in the capability of doing what you have stated above. It does OR. only.

Advanced filtering would be nice, but I think that if "AND" would have been chosen instead of "OR", even a simple filter would have been good enough for most situations. I think I would have to have some pretty silly categories to make OR useful.

This represents my opinion, but I think many would agree.
-greenup

onesix18
02-24-2004, 04:41 PM
Ok, I’ve read this whole thread, and haven’t yet found a solution to my issue. I have used categories extensively for years--love them. I have lots of cats and most contacts have at least two. Many have up to 8 or 10, and I have over 1,100 contacts.

Here’s my issue: I sync my PPC between my home and work computer (so I have partnerships with 2 PCs). Sometimes, when I add categories to a contact on one PC, sync, and then later sync to the second PC, those categories do not get assigned to the same contact on the second PC. Also, sometimes they do not get assigned on my PPC.

I’m using PPC 2002, an iPAQ 3970, Pocket Informant 4.6.1, Outlook 2000 at home and Outlook 2002 at work (both newer laptops using WinXP). Can anyone help?

SassKwatch
02-25-2004, 01:40 AM
Here’s my issue: I sync my PPC between my home and work computer (so I have partnerships with 2 PCs). Sometimes, when I add categories to a contact on one PC, sync, and then later sync to the second PC, those categories do not get assigned to the same contact on the second PC. Also, sometimes they do not get assigned on my PPC.
I vaguely remember running into this quite some time ago. And I concluded the categories had to be manually created on each device. I.e, I couldn't create a category on my desktop at work, assign to whichever contacts/tasks/etc I deemed appropriate, sync the PPC, and assume the categories would be created and assigned appropriately on the PPC....and then go home and sync the PPC with the home desktop and have the categories synced/created there as well.

Never did figure out if it was something I was doing wrong, or whether this was by design, but ever since, as long as I create the categories on each device * and be sure to name them exactly the same on each *, then everything has worked fine.

onesix18
02-25-2004, 12:27 PM
Sass, thanks for the reply... in fact I had created the same cat on both PCs (in this case, 'Bluetooth', to sync only the contacts I want in my phone), but it still didn't work. In fact, something like 4 of the Bluetooth contacts came through with that cat, but the rest didn't.

Are you saying that I not only need to create the cat, but also to manually assign it on each device? I hear ya, but what a hassle.

I wonder if there is a per-contact limit on the number of cats that PI/ActiveSync/Outlook will track...

SassKwatch
02-25-2004, 02:18 PM
Are you saying that I not only need to create the cat, but also to manually assign it on each device? I hear ya, but what a hassle.
It's not quite that bad...at least for me. I've only had to manually create the categories on each device. Once that's done, I can choose the device to create the contacts on and assign them to the chosen categories. Then sync.

I wonder if there is a per-contact limit on the number of cats that PI/ActiveSync/Outlook will track...
I guess that's possible...though I've never heard of such a limit. I think the most categories to which I have any single item assigned is probably 5.

onesix18
02-28-2004, 01:45 PM
I appreciate the response to my question...but my issue still isn't resolved and this is really bugging me. (Not all categories sync to PI using PPC2002, Outlook 2000, 2002, 2 separate PCs running WinXP.) Upon further examination, I've noticed that not just one but several of my category groups are not syncing between PC and PDA, or they're not making the journey from PC1 (work) to PDA to PC2 (home), and vice-versa. I have about 52 categories that I use, some contacts have up to 8 categories, and sometimes I use longer names like "Project-Gulfstream" or "Brokers-Commercial".

I have tried manually creating the category on all 3 devices, then assigning it to contacts and syncing, but this does not work either. Can someone help? How can I get all my categories on all my devices to be the same?

WindBag
04-22-2004, 08:16 PM
How can I get all my categories on all my devices to be the same?

I'd appreciate an answer/solution to this too. I read the lead article on this thread just after getting my first Pocket PC, and it makes a lot of sense, so I've followed the principle throughout. To find that ActiveSync doesn't synchronise the categories that it uses to control synchronisation is absolutely ludicrous! To also find that categories don't control the Pocket PC end of the synch is equally apalling. IntelliSync may be the answer, but I've seen reviews that it may not be the golden bullet either. And anyway, ActiveSync should do all this...

Thoughts welcome!

Ed Hansberry
04-22-2004, 08:23 PM
Unfortunately, ActiveSync does not sync over the master category list. I know of no workaround nor of a third party app that will do this for you.

Janak Parekh
04-24-2004, 08:18 PM
Unfortunately, ActiveSync does not sync over the master category list. I know of no workaround nor of a third party app that will do this for you.
The workaround I employ is to not use the Master Category List in Outlook at all, but instead to use Category views and to manually type in categories. Not perfect, but it's better than nothing.

Nevertheless, I've never had onesix18's problem. When I assign a category on one computer, it sticks as such on my Pocket PC and both computers it's partnered with.

--janak

WindBag
04-25-2004, 07:44 AM
The workaround I employ is to not use the Master Category List in Outlook at all, but instead to use Category views and to manually type in categories. Not perfect, but it's better than nothing.

--janak

I have tried this and have had patchy success/failure. It gets quite difficult to tell why things are disappearing, though, and I'm not yet convinced that I haven't seen the issue that onesix18 is flagging up. My Master category list certainly has been out of sync with the Calendar one. Having the two is confusing - if there are ones in Calendar which are not in "Master", what does "Master" mean?

But getting categories in sync is a much bigger problem when you're trying to go "all-electronic" with a partner (who has been getting brassed off that you're not filling in the paper calendar any more).

Mine (Carol) also has Outlook at work, now has her own PDA (both are iPaq 2215's), but we share the home PC. Synching at home tells each other about each other's appointmenrts, which is great when you've arranged a night out or something.

But the categories should be a way to control which ones end up everywhere, and which only on your arm of the "work" branch. It is embarrasing/annoying having your partner's work appointment reminders going off on your PDA when it's nothing to do with you.

You've also got to sync categories across 5 units via two different people ! The whole point with synch is that it should do it all for you - except it doesn't, which seems shoddy to me.

There are also issues about the control only being one-ended, which IntelliSync might well cure, but ActiveSync should have had in the first place.

We've both introduced a "_Joint Synch" category (so it appears at the top of the list) to assign to everything we wanted to be on all 5 units, but currently fail to be able to control with this. The only way we could see to force this to work consistently was to delete the Partnership and reset it back up, getting the Master Category in sync with the list you're given with the ActiveSync Sync Options/settings menu. The notion of having to do this each time either of us wants to introduce a category is, frankly, laughable.

It certainly doesn't help persuade a sceptical partner that "all-electronic" is the way to go, especially when the first batch of her work appointments
she'd set up were deleted without warning...!

Ed Hansberry
04-25-2004, 02:08 PM
I have tried this and have had patchy success/failure. It gets quite difficult to tell why things are disappearing, though, and I'm not yet convinced that I haven't seen the issue that onesix18 is flagging up. My Master category list certainly has been out of sync with the Calendar one. Having the two is confusing - if there are ones in Calendar which are not in "Master", what does "Master" mean?The Master list is a database of your default categories, which you can modify. The easiest way to see this is open a Task on your desktop, click the Categories button then the Master List button.But the categories should be a way to control which ones end up everywhere, and which only on your arm of the "work" branch. It is embarrasing/annoying having your partner's work appointment reminders going off on your PDA when it's nothing to do with you. They would do that, if Activesync worked properly. :-( Actually, it does work properly, it simply wasn't designed for that.It certainly doesn't help persuade a sceptical partner that "all-electronic" is the way to go, especially when the first batch of her work appointments she'd set up were deleted without warning...!
I've never seen that, unless on that first sync she told AS to eraser her device and sync from the desktop instead of the "combine" option.

onesix18
04-25-2004, 03:31 PM
Well everyone, thanks for the great discussion on my original post (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=218958#218958). It seems apparent right now that being able to create, at will, categories in the master list and have them reliably sync between 2 PCs and 1 PPC is impossible. Perhaps someone will write a freeware hack that will help with this. In the meantime, I have my "work" categories on my work PC, and my "home" categories on my home PC, and never the twain shall meet on my iPAQ. It's annoying, but it is, as they say, what it is. The biggest drawback in all of this is that I cannot reliably use categories on my PPC. They work at home and at work, but ironically not on the road where I need them most.

SassKwatch
04-25-2004, 03:53 PM
It seems apparent right now that being able to create, at will, categories in the master list and have them reliably sync between 2 PCs and 1 PPC is impossible. Perhaps someone will write a freeware hack that will help with this.
IMO, one of the larger problems with all this is that there is no industry 'standard' for handling PIM data. It seems things are a little better if you're able to use all MS products on all machines. But there are so many large enterprises that utilize Groupwise and/or Lotus Notes...both of which have their own 'unique' way of handling (or lack thereof depending upon one's perspective) such data.

Og_IV
02-14-2005, 05:23 PM
Ed,

That was a very well written article, and I have since removed all but three of my subfolders.

The reason that I have not removed those three folders is that I have a group of colleagues that I give permission to view each of those folders, and the only way I can see to change this using categories would be to mark all other contacts as private, and then let all three groups see all the contacts from each of the three folders, which I prefer not to do.

Is there any way to do this using categories?

Thanks,

-Ray

Ed Hansberry
02-14-2005, 06:36 PM
Ed,

That was a very well written article, and I have since removed all but three of my subfolders.

The reason that I have not removed those three folders is that I have a group of colleagues that I give permission to view each of those folders, and the only way I can see to change this using categories would be to mark all other contacts as private, and then let all three groups see all the contacts from each of the three folders, which I prefer not to do.

Is there any way to do this using categories?
No, and those are good points. Outlook/Exchange don't let you get granular on what you can/can't share. :?

It looks like for this, you are stuck with the same workaround I discussed in the "Caveats" section for public folders.