Sorting Cntacts by location

In OL 2003 (and 2000 as well) I am having a problem sorting (actually,
viewing) contacts by location. For example, I know the person I want to
find is in MN but I can't recall his name. So I change the Contacts view
from the usual Address Cards to By Location. The problem is that I have a
number of Contacts in that state (actually 5). They end up in two different
groups. If I customize the view to Country then State, I get two sets of
Contacts where the Country is none (I usually try to leave the country blank
when I enter a Contact's information is the person is in the US, to avoid
always getting "United States of America" every time I use AddressLayout or
a macro). There is a group of Contacts in MN in each: One group has 4 of
the 5 Contacts and the other has the 5th. Two of the contacts work at the
same firm, with the address for each being identical as far as I can tell
(one is the other's assistant!). The assistant is in a different group from
the boss, who is the sole MN Contact in one of the groups.

If I change the View to display by State, and then Office Location (there is
no field for city or town), all 5 MN contacts show up under MN, but they are
broken into two groups by Office Location (both groups show up as "none"
which makes no sense since every contact has a full mailing address in
Minneapolis MN). If I get rid of Office Location and just group by State,
all 5 MN Contacts show up together.

Not exactly the world's greatest problem in Outlook, but I can't understand
why people who certainly ought to be grouped together are not. And how
there be two versions of "Country" when the country is left blank?


Joe McGuire

Sounds like you should be using Advanced Find instead.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
"Joseph McGuire" wrote in message
...
In OL 2003 (and 2000 as well) I am having a problem sorting (actually,
viewing) contacts by location. For example, I know the person I want to
find is in MN but I can't recall his name. So I change the Contacts view
from the usual Address Cards to By Location. The problem is that I have a
number of Contacts in that state (actually 5). They end up in two
different
groups. If I customize the view to Country then State, I get two sets of
Contacts where the Country is none (I usually try to leave the country
blank
when I enter a Contact's information is the person is in the US, to avoid
always getting "United States of America" every time I use AddressLayout
or
a macro). There is a group of Contacts in MN in each: One group has 4 of
the 5 Contacts and the other has the 5th. Two of the contacts work at the
same firm, with the address for each being identical as far as I can tell
(one is the other's assistant!). The assistant is in a different group
from
the boss, who is the sole MN Contact in one of the groups.

If I change the View to display by State, and then Office Location (there
is
no field for city or town), all 5 MN contacts show up under MN, but they
are
broken into two groups by Office Location (both groups show up as "none"
which makes no sense since every contact has a full mailing address in
Minneapolis MN). If I get rid of Office Location and just group by State,
all 5 MN Contacts show up together.

Not exactly the world's greatest problem in Outlook, but I can't
understand
why people who certainly ought to be grouped together are not. And how
there be two versions of "Country" when the country is left blank?


Joe McGuire

Thanks. Find/Advanced Find might be a better way to look for somebody. Not
sure why I did not think of that.

I continue to be puzzled, though, as to in View By Location (Group by
Country, State) I ended up with 2 different groups of Contacts each with the
country being "none." When I changed to Group by State I found a few cases
where there were different versions of the State or Province, but these
seemed to be explained by some slight difference in the way the info was
entered (in one case the state and the zip code were combined, e.g. PA and
PA 19103. No point in worrying about it, though.


"Russ Valentine [MVP-Outlook]" wrote in message
...
Sounds like you should be using Advanced Find instead.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
"Joseph McGuire" wrote in message
...
In OL 2003 (and 2000 as well) I am having a problem sorting (actually,
viewing) contacts by location. For example, I know the person I want to
find is in MN but I can't recall his name. So I change the Contacts
view
from the usual Address Cards to By Location. The problem is that I have
a
number of Contacts in that state (actually 5). They end up in two
different
groups. If I customize the view to Country then State, I get two sets
of
Contacts where the Country is none (I usually try to leave the country
blank
when I enter a Contact's information is the person is in the US, to
avoid
always getting "United States of America" every time I use AddressLayout
or
a macro). There is a group of Contacts in MN in each: One group has 4
of
the 5 Contacts and the other has the 5th. Two of the contacts work at
the
same firm, with the address for each being identical as far as I can
tell
(one is the other's assistant!). The assistant is in a different group
from
the boss, who is the sole MN Contact in one of the groups.

If I change the View to display by State, and then Office Location
(there
is
no field for city or town), all 5 MN contacts show up under MN, but they
are
broken into two groups by Office Location (both groups show up as "none"
which makes no sense since every contact has a full mailing address in
Minneapolis MN). If I get rid of Office Location and just group by
State,
all 5 MN Contacts show up together.

Not exactly the world's greatest problem in Outlook, but I can't
understand
why people who certainly ought to be grouped together are not. And how
there be two versions of "Country" when the country is left blank?


Joe McGuire

I have noted that an item with a field that has never had data seems
sometimes to be treated differently than a field whose contents have
been deleted. Had you heard or observed that, Russ ? Could that be
contributing to the problem. [To be frank, I'm not sure that I totally
understood the problem.]]

Grouping by location can often produce some surprising results. Empty fields
are treated differently if they've had a value deleted than if they never
had a value entered. Also, Contacts created in earlier versions of Outlook
may be treated differently. Finally, imported Contacts are almost never
grouped correctly.
That's why I recommend Advanced Find or Lookout for doing searches instead
of using grouping methods.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
"ProfDD" wrote in message
oups.com...
I have noted that an item with a field that has never had data seems
sometimes to be treated differently than a field whose contents have
been deleted. Had you heard or observed that, Russ ? Could that be
contributing to the problem. [To be frank, I'm not sure that I totally
understood the problem.]]