Using Categories for Contacts versus sub-folders

[sat]

OL 2002 SP3, Win XP HE SP1
Follow-up to microsoft.public.outlook.contacts

Hi,
I am struggling to find the best possible way to organize and view contacts
(AND perhaps emails.)
At the moment, I am using sub-folders of the main "Contacts" folder, etc.,
to organize contacts by different sub-folders such as "Personal",
"Business", etc.
I am doing the same for emails, with sub-folders of Inbox, containing emails
related to a particular activity or line of business--each with its own
sub-folder named accordingly.
I find this system practical at first but unwieldy as it grows.
I am not using Categories.
However, it has been suggested to me NOT to use the system described above
but rather use Categories for emails and Contacts, and then create views or
filters based on these Categories or group by Category, etc.
I am really not an OL expert and would greatly appreciate the comments of
you guys OL experts out there in helping me with this issue and getting full
capacity from OL, if worth it in my case.

Thanks!

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

In

OL 2002 SP3, Win XP HE SP1
Follow-up to microsoft.public.outlook.contacts

Hi,
I am struggling to find the best possible way to organize and view
contacts (AND perhaps emails.)
At the moment, I am using sub-folders of the main "Contacts" folder,
etc., to organize contacts by different sub-folders such as
"Personal", "Business", etc.
I am doing the same for emails, with sub-folders of Inbox, containing
emails related to a particular activity or line of business--each
with its own sub-folder named accordingly.
I find this system practical at first but unwieldy as it grows.
I am not using Categories.
However, it has been suggested to me NOT to use the system described
above but rather use Categories for emails and Contacts, and then
create views or filters based on these Categories or group by
Category, etc.
I am really not an OL expert and would greatly appreciate the
comments of you guys OL experts out there in helping me with this
issue and getting full capacity from OL, if worth it in my case.

Thanks!

I think categories is a much better way to organize your contacts than
multiple folders. What do you do now, if someone you have a contact for,
really belongs in more than one place?

I don't use categories for e-mail, much....just contacts, calendar, tasks.
Play around with them a bit - set up another contacts folder as a test, copy
a bunch of contacts into it, assign categories to them, and work on learning
how to create custom views to make things work as you wish.

Outlook 2003 will make this work even better for you, honestly.

Search www.slipstick.com for "categories" (no quotes) for more help.

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

There's a good discussion here:
http://www.slipstick.com/contacts/oloabcat.htm

 

[sat]

Hi, Yes right now, I already have a problem with multiple entries for one
contact in different folders.
Can you tell me more about what OL 2003 would do better then OL 2002 with
regards to this issue?
Tx.

 

[sat]

Thanks for the link.
There's not much of a discussion there; really just a few comments......
Any further ideas?

 

[Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]]

Not without knowing what it is you need to do.

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 05:41:19 -1000, sat <saturnin02_at_hotmail.com> wrote:

I agree with the suggestions you've received. Use categories and then
custom views to navigate them. This has a lot of advantages, one of which
being that you can have a single contact who is a member of multiple
categories and you only need a single record for them.


--
-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, MVP-OneNote/Outlook
Operations Coordinator
Stockholm/KSG - Honolulu
Microsoft Outlook FAQ:
http://home.hawaii.rr.com/schorr/computers/outlook.htm

 

[Judy Gleeson MVP Outlook]

Generally Categories are the way to go for Contacts as (for example) you may
have a need to sometimes send an email merged to all of them and if they are
in multiple folders, that takes multiple merges. PDA users also find a
single folder can be better for synching.

You can go down the Defining View track or just use the Field Chooser and
Group By Box in Simple List view and tailor to your heart's delight.

If you Group By Category, all you need to do is drag the header of the
Category to the Outbox to email all of them. Mailmerging is easy too -
highlight and select Tools | Mailmerge | email (bottom of screen) | type
your subject | OK | then you're off merging - just make sure to merge to the
Contacts fields not the Word fields (button to the left of the much more
obvious Merge Fields one)

As well as Categories, you can make your own fields. Then group by these.
Eg we have a field called "software" So if I want to email all the IT
managers with Outlook, I group by Category ( that will say IT Manager) and
then group by the Software field. I can then email merge to them easily and
it took me 20 seconds to get the bunch ready.

Judy Gleeson [MVP Outlook]
Acorn Training and Consulting
www.acorntraining.com.au

Everyone - turn on your Advanced Toolbars and learn how to use the Field
Chooser and Group by Box!!

 

[sat]

Tx for ur comments Judy. I appreciate the extra info.

Generally Categories are the way to go for Contacts as (for example) you
may have a need to sometimes send an email merged to all of them and if
they are in multiple folders, that takes multiple merges. PDA users also
find a single folder can be better for synching.

You can go down the Defining View track or just use the Field Chooser and
Group By Box in Simple List view and tailor to your heart's delight.

If you Group By Category, all you need to do is drag the header of the
Category to the Outbox to email all of them. Mailmerging is easy too -
highlight and select Tools | Mailmerge | email (bottom of screen) | type
your subject | OK | then you're off merging - just make sure to merge to
the Contacts fields not the Word fields (button to the left of the much
more obvious Merge Fields one)

As well as Categories, you can make your own fields. Then group by these.
Eg we have a field called "software" So if I want to email all the IT
managers with Outlook, I group by Category ( that will say IT Manager) and
then group by the Software field. I can then email merge to them easily
and it took me 20 seconds to get the bunch ready.

Judy Gleeson [MVP Outlook]
Acorn Training and Consulting
www.acorntraining.com.au

Everyone - turn on your Advanced Toolbars and learn how to use the Field
Chooser and Group by Box!!

OL 2002 SP3, Win XP HE SP1
Follow-up to microsoft.public.outlook.contacts

Hi,
I am struggling to find the best possible way to organize and view
contacts
(AND perhaps emails.)
At the moment, I am using sub-folders of the main "Contacts" folder,
etc., to organize contacts by different sub-folders such as "Personal",
"Business", etc.
I am doing the same for emails, with sub-folders of Inbox, containing
emails
related to a particular activity or line of business--each with its own
sub-folder named accordingly.
I find this system practical at first but unwieldy as it grows.
I am not using Categories.
However, it has been suggested to me NOT to use the system described
above but rather use Categories for emails and Contacts, and then create
views or
filters based on these Categories or group by Category, etc.
I am really not an OL expert and would greatly appreciate the comments of
you guys OL experts out there in helping me with this issue and getting
full
capacity from OL, if worth it in my case.

Thanks!