SPV C500, Searching Contacts

[Guest tilemark365]

Help, Can i change the way my SPV C500 searches in contacts, ie, you enter the contacts screen and you tap your M key to look for Mark Squire

and the phone selects all the surnames begining with a M ie Steven Moor.

can i change this ??

Many Thanks Mark.

[Guest beersoft]

hi, and welcome to the site

i find that when i need to search for a contact the more letters you type in the less you have to scroll

if you where looking for steven moor, you could type 6667 to filter for moor or 7838 to filter for stev

i can get to any of my 300 contacts in 5 or less keypresses (including dialing them)

later

Owen

[Guest boysweek]

I remember when I got my first Smartphone (E200 but now on a C500) I didn't appreciate the search logic at first but it is designed to make sure you can easily find a contact irrespective of how it is filed.

For example, most people would probably file a contact as John Smith. However, Outlook gives you a lot of flexibility depending on your requirements. For example you can set the default format to Smith, John . If you are a business user the name could even be filed as CompanyName (John Smith), CompanyName(Smith, John), John Smith (CompanyName) or even Smith, John (CompanyName). But with the Smartphone search logic it doesn't matter how it is filed, you get a fast result.

So an example following on from beersoft's advice:

Press 5 and it will filter all First Names, Surnames and, if you have them, company names begining with a letters J,K,L

Press 6 and it will now filter first names, surnames and company names down to those with the first two letters containing the following combinations:

JM, JN, JO, KM, KN, KO, LM, LN, LO

in reality this will already shorten the search list dramatically

Press 4 and it now filters down to another level and your search list will now be very short and certainly John Smith will be easy to scroll to.

my friend has his 4000+ business contact database in his C500 and he can find most contacts in less than 5 key presses just as beersoft says.

Once you have used it a couple of times it is very intuitive.

Steve

[Guest pisquee]

Searching the contacts list is one of the things that MS got right with the OS from the start, and it is a nice basic but impressive thing to show people hoe good the phone is, assuming most people want it to be a phone first.

[Guest Kid Dynamo]

I find it a lot easier to find a conatct if they are file:

John Smith rather than Smith, John.

But that may just be me.

Dumb Tony

[Guest rkdiddy]

Does anyone know how to change the view of contacts? Right now when you look at my contacts on the phone they come up last name first (i.e. Smith, John). I would like to change them to first name first (i.e. John Smith)? Anyone know???

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

Just edit the contact and you have the option File as:

[Guest beersoft]

what you need to do is change the way the names are stored in outlook

there are many options, surname,firstname firstname surname company, surname,firstname etc....

you have to do it for each contact tho

later

Owen

[Guest rkdiddy]

Great!

Thank you guys! That makes sense. I remembered my Treo had a setting...go to love Microsoft.

[Guest boysweek]

If you enter a new Contact into Outlook on your laptop/desktop you can set the default way they are filed. This saves you having to do each one manually. Unfortunately you have to change it manually if setting up a new contact on the phone.

In Outlook: Tools, Options, Preferences, Contact Options

Steve