Problem with contacts categories

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Guest

We run MS Outlook 2003 on an Small Business Server 2003 network. We use
Outlook to store circa 8,000 contacts, defined under 14 categories. The
problem we're encountering is, when entering new contacts, the categorisation
is being handled differently by Outlook - i.e. we used to have categories
separated by a comma, now it's a changed to a semi-colon. New contacts will
not recognise two categories, i.e. categorisation such as 'Prospect' and
'Newsletter' will only be recognised as 'Newsletter'.

Before this drives me to distraction, can anyone suggest a fix?
 
Did users recently change their regional settings in Control Panel? That's where the text delimiter is defined.

You should still be able to set multiple categories on an item, though.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
Hi Sue,

Thanks for the quick response. There's been no (conscious) changes to
regional settings.

Our problems occur when we use a second category (we use this to designate
our newsletter is required). It now seems as though Outlook's reached a limit
and insists on using a semi-colon separator. It also ignores the original
categorisation.
 
Details? Number of categories per item? Number of characters? What steps are you following to set categories on items?

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
Number of categories per item? For circa 50% of our contacts, it's two. For
the remainder it's one.

Number of characters? The longest category is 12 characters (Public Sector)
or 11 (Competition). When using two categories, its 23 characters (Public
Sector, Newsletter).

What steps are you following to set categories on items? Categories are
defined in the Master Category list, and then assigned using Categories
dialog box in the bottom right corner of the Contacts pop-up box.
 
I'd try running Help | Delete and Repair. Nothing about your configuration or usage suggests a possible cause of the problem.

What exactly happens when you select two categories in the Categories dialog?

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
I hope Sue gets this fixed for you....

In the meantime - you could make a new Field called Newsletter as a YES/NO
field and check it for people wo are supposed to be sent it.

This would unclutter your category field too and show that there are lots
of separate pieces of data you can hold about clients.

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!!


I'd try running Help | Delete and Repair. Nothing about your configuration
or usage suggests a possible cause of the problem.

What exactly happens when you select two categories in the Categories
dialog?

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers



John Blackwell said:
Number of categories per item? For circa 50% of our contacts, it's two. For
the remainder it's one.

Number of characters? The longest category is 12 characters (Public Sector)
or 11 (Competition). When using two categories, its 23 characters (Public
Sector, Newsletter).

What steps are you following to set categories on items? Categories are
defined in the Master Category list, and then assigned using Categories
dialog box in the bottom right corner of the Contacts pop-up box.
Click to expand...
steps are you following to set categories on items?
 
Hi Sue,

I've run Delete & Repair and still get the same issue.

When I select two categories, Outlook now decides to assign a semi-colon
separator rather than a comma as it previously used. It also swaps the order
of new categorisation, placing 'Newsletter' before any other category.
Finally, it decides to only display one category rather than both. It's all
very puzzling.

The net result is that I have to export the entire contact db on a regular
basis, clean it, and reimport it. Not a satisfactory process.
 
Hi Judy,

I'm not sure I fully understand your suggestion. Where would I create the
new field?

Judy Gleeson MVP Outlook said:
I hope Sue gets this fixed for you....

In the meantime - you could make a new Field called Newsletter as a YES/NO
field and check it for people wo are supposed to be sent it.

This would unclutter your category field too and show that there are lots
of separate pieces of data you can hold about clients.

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!!


I'd try running Help | Delete and Repair. Nothing about your configuration
or usage suggests a possible cause of the problem.

What exactly happens when you select two categories in the Categories
dialog?

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers



John Blackwell said:
Number of categories per item? For circa 50% of our contacts, it's two. For
the remainder it's one.

Number of characters? The longest category is 12 characters (Public Sector)
or 11 (Competition). When using two categories, its 23 characters (Public
Sector, Newsletter).

What steps are you following to set categories on items? Categories are
defined in the Master Category list, and then assigned using Categories
dialog box in the bottom right corner of the Contacts pop-up box.
Click to expand...
steps are you following to set categories on items?
Click to expand...
 
Did you ever check Regional Settings in Control Panel to see what the list separator is?

When you say it displays only one category rather than both, where are you seeing that behavior?

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
Sorry Sue, I forgot to mention I'd done this action and (a) there had not
been any changes, and (b) the settings were set to United Kingdom.
 
But what, specifically, is the separator setting? Did you click the Advanced button to look?
--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
Hello Sue,

The separator setting is set to comma. I did indeed check the Advanced
settings and that is also set to English (United Kingdom).

We have not made any changes to these settings and have been using Outlook
2003 to store our ~ 8,000 contacts for the last 3 years. The problems arose
when we recently added the extra Newsletter category and tried to use 2
categories for some contacts. It's been from this point forward that we've
experienced the issues we've described.
 
Does the problem occur only when the Newsletter category is added? Is there any possibility that you have some add-in installed that's also operating on these items? I have to ask because the behavior you describe doesn't match any Outlook problems I've ever heard of.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
Unfortunately the problem occurs across several different
'double-categorisation' configs. Equally, there is nothing we have
consciously added-in to cause this problem.

Always dangerous to come up with an uninformed opinion but it "feels" as
though we've reached a contact capacity issue with Outlook.
 
8000 contacts isn't all that many, IMO. I think I have 3000 on my desktop in a PST file. I've heard of public folders with 20,000+, but usually on a machine with dual processors and lots of RAM. You might want to look at perf stats on the server to see if there's a problem there.

Is there a custom Outlook form involved? Any event sink on the folder?

You could also perform a simple test to see if the same problem occurs in a contacts folder in a .pst file. That might suggest whether it's a server or client issue.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
sorry John - was away for a bit:

Make a new field using the field chooser. New | make a yes/no type of
field called Newsletter.

Use it to do your grouping (Group By Box) . All of these functions are on
Advanced toolbar.
--

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!!


8000 contacts isn't all that many, IMO. I think I have 3000 on my desktop
in a PST file. I've heard of public folders with 20,000+, but usually on a
machine with dual processors and lots of RAM. You might want to look at perf
stats on the server to see if there's a problem there.

Is there a custom Outlook form involved? Any event sink on the folder?

You could also perform a simple test to see if the same problem occurs in
a contacts folder in a .pst file. That might suggest whether it's a server
or client issue.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers



John Blackwell said:
Unfortunately the problem occurs across several different
'double-categorisation' configs. Equally, there is nothing we have
consciously added-in to cause this problem.

Always dangerous to come up with an uninformed opinion but it "feels" as
though we've reached a contact capacity issue with Outlook.
Click to expand...
there any possibility that you have some add-in installed that's also
operating on these items? I have to ask because the behavior you describe
doesn't match any Outlook problems I've ever heard of.
 
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