Search Issues w/Business Contacts

[Jeeslawees]

I am evaluating making a switch from my current contact manager software to
Outlook 2007 w/BCM that came with my recent purchase of MS Office. For
testing purposes, I've created about 10 "Contact" records and 350 "Business
Contact" records.

I have a couple of search related questions:

1) Anyone know why instant searching AND the hi-liting feature works
differently and inconsistently with contact records in the BCM vs. just plain
Outlook?
When typing a search string in the Contacts view, the magnifying glass icon
goes away immediately everything seems to happen in real time as the string
is typed. As letters of the search string are typed, the yellow hi-liting
occurs in the on screen columns/fields and all matching records are displayed
with ALL the hi-liting.
However, when typing a search string in the Business Contacts view, the
search is not performed in real time. Matching records are
extracted/displayed ONLY AFTER you type all characters of the search string
AND you click the magnifying glass. And even then, only a random, small
portion of the matching search strings are hi-lited in the on screen
columns/fields of the displayed matching records.

2) Anyone know why the search feature ignores field entries selected from
drop-down lists (vs. the way it properly works with text entries)?
Except for the drop-down fields of Title and Suffix (both of which are
automatically appended to the Full Name field), any information in
columns/fields that are a result of a drop-down list are ignored by the
instant searching feature.
For example, when I do an instant search in the Business Contacts view on
the string "November", no matching records are found, but yet there are
plenty of records with either a Birthday or Anniversary in November.
Or, if I select "Face-to-Face" from the Preferred Method of Communication
drop-down list in about 20 Business Contact records, and I search the string
"Face", no matching records are found.
Or, if I create a User Defined drop-down list field called Industry Keyword
with terms such as Engineering Services, Electric Utilty, etc., a search
string like "Utility" results in no matching records found.
Interestingly, if I make the Industry Keyword field just a text field, the
search string of "Utility" DOES find and display all matching records.

Thanks!

 

[Luther]

I am evaluating making a switch from my current contact manager software to
Outlook 2007 w/BCM that came with my recent purchase of MS Office.  For
testing purposes, I've created about 10 "Contact" records and 350 "Business
Contact" records.

I have a couple of search related questions:

1) Anyone know why instant searching AND the hi-liting feature works
differently and inconsistently with contact records in the BCM vs. just plain
Outlook?
When typing a search string in the Contacts view, the magnifying glass icon
goes away immediately everything seems to happen in real time as the string
is typed.  As letters of the search string are typed, the yellow hi-liting
occurs in the on screen columns/fields and all matching records are displayed
with ALL the hi-liting.
However, when typing a search string in the Business Contacts view, the
search is not performed in real time.  Matching records are
extracted/displayed ONLY AFTER you type all characters of the search string
AND you click the magnifying glass.  And even then, only a random, small
portion of the matching search strings are hi-lited in the on screen
columns/fields of the displayed matching records.  

2) Anyone know why the search feature ignores field entries selected from
drop-down lists (vs. the way it properly works with text entries)?
Except for the drop-down fields of Title and Suffix (both of which are
automatically appended to the Full Name field), any information in
columns/fields that are a result of a drop-down list are ignored by the
instant searching feature.
For example, when I do an instant search in the Business Contacts view on
the string "November", no matching records are found, but yet there are
plenty of records with either a Birthday or Anniversary in November.
Or, if I select "Face-to-Face" from the Preferred Method of Communication
drop-down list in about 20 Business Contact records, and I search the string
"Face", no matching records are found.
Or, if I create a User Defined drop-down list field called Industry Keyword
with terms such as Engineering Services, Electric Utilty, etc., a search
string like "Utility" results in no matching records found.
Interestingly, if I make the Industry Keyword field just a text field, the
search string of "Utility" DOES find and display all matching records.

Thanks!

I suspect the differences are because there are three different
programs involved in a search: Outlook, BCM and Windows Desktop
Search. Overtime they will share better and their behaviors will
converge, but Window Desktop Search wasn't working quite right in the
Vista betas, so I'm not surprised to hear searches behave differently
in Outlook and BCM 2007.