Russ, first of all, thank you for your patience. I will try to clarify
what I
mean. If I were to add a brand new contact in Outlook and I place the
cursor
in the phone number field and type 4165551212 and then hit tab to move to
the
next field, the phone number will be displayed as (416) 555-1212. Then,
when
I sync with my phone(s), it will show up on my phone the same way. If I
dial
this number from my phone when I am outside this area code (long
distance), I
get the recorded message saying, "the number you are calling is a long
distance number. Please place a 1 in front of the number to avoid this
message." Then it will dial the call.
However, when adding a new contact in Outlook, if I click on the Business
Phone # button (instead of placing the cursor in the phone number field
box
as above), another box pops up entitled Check Phone Number. In this box
there
are four fields to fill in; Country/Region, City/Area Code, Local Number
and
Extension. The first field already shows Canada as that is my default
location. So if I enter 416 in City/Area Code and 5551212 in the Local
Number
field box and click OK, the box disappears and the number showing in the
Business Phone # field box will now look like this +1 (416) 555-1212.
Therefore, now when I sync with my phone, it will show up on my phone as
+1
(416) 555-1212 and when I dial it form outside this area code, I no longer
get that recorded message. So I guess to answer your question, I DO want
it
to show in Outlook with the +1 in front of the number because this seems
to
be the only way it will dial correctly from my phone(s).
Unfortunately, I currently have approximately 4,500 phone numbers in
Outlook
without the +1 in front of them so I was hoping there is a way to "group
edit" them like with ACT as opposed to having to manually change each one.
Russ Valentine said:
You've lost me.
Explain:
1. Do you want the country code in your Outlook phone number fields or
not?
You've now said it both ways.
2. Why do you think that how your iPhone dials is in any way an Outlook
issue? It is an iPhone issue.
Changing the format of existing phone numbers in Outlook would require
running code. Assuming you are convinced you need to do so, I would ask
in
the programming group. Ken Slovak can write code like that in his sleep.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
Well, I use and sync both a Windows Mobile phone and the iPhone. I
would
never dial a number from my computer so that doesn't matter to me.
Personally, I don't care how Outlook displays the phone number, I just
want
my synced cell phones to dial it as long distance when I am out of my
local
dialing area.
Now since my last post, I discovered something interesting. If I
double-click on a contact name and open the individual contact window,
then
left-click on the Business Phone # button (or Fax or Mobile), another
box
pops up entitled Check Phone Number (similar to the address one). Then,
if
I
click on OK, the box closes and there is now a +1 beside the phone
number
(which wasn't there before).
The only problem with this method is that I don't want to do this over
4,000
times more to cover all my contacts. There has to be an easier way.
:
No. I'm saying that the phone number format in Outlook is not the
problem
and you have no need to change it. International (or canonical) format
is
the preferred way to store phone numbers because it is the universal
standard. That's why Outlook uses it.
If your dialing software cannot dial your numbers correctly, it has
nothing
to do with Outlook. Outlook does participate in that process. If you
are
using the Windows dialer, your problem is that you don't have your
operating
system's dialing rules set correctly. If you are using some other
dialing
software, the problem is with its configuration. Outlook does not dial
your
numbers and we have no way of knowing which dialer you are using.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
So you are saying that if I go in through Control Panel and edit my
dialing
rules, it will automatically place a +1 in front of all my phone,
fax
and
cell numbers?
Or is this something that needs to be done before you start
populating
the
contacts database?
Thank you.
:
The problem is not the format of your phone numbers. It is with
your
dialing
rules.
Not an Outlook issue.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
I have seen posts where people want to remove the +1 in the phone
number
but
not add it. It is difficult to give a history of how my contact
phone
numbers
ended up without the +1 as I have used many versions of Outlook
and
many
third party CRM's in the past. I am currently using Office 2007
with
Outlook
and have about 2,000 contacts with phone, fax and cell numbers
for
each.
About .05% of these are local calls so every time I make a call
from
my
cell,
I have to wait for the message that says, "please dial a ! before
your
number.....".
Is there a way to edit the phone, fax and cell phone field for
all
contacts
at the same time?
If I recall correctly, ACT had a "global edit" command that made
this
type
of batch editing very easy. Although, I also seem to remember
finding a
way
to edit the name or address of a group of contacts in Outlook at
the
same
time but there were at least ten times as many steps to
accomplish
the
same
thing.
