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Disaster! Outlook 2011 major (bizarre) issue!

A

austincolby

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 16, 2004
31
0
OH NO HELP! I FINALLY talked my entire small company into switching EVERYTHING to macs (yay!) - everyone has brand new shiny Macbook Airs, running fresh copies of Microsoft Office 2011... yippee!!!

Here is what is going on:

1) I click on a vcard link in Safari, which opens the new contact in Outlook

2) I select the 'notes' tab under the new contact, and begin entering info

3) Anywhere from 10 seconds to 1 minute later, WHILE I'M TYPING (or staring at the screen thinking of what else to enter), *POOF* - all of the text I just entered literally VANISHES.

This is a catastrophe. If I can't figure this out and fix it ASAP, the whole company's foray into Macs is over. All that time, all that equipment, poof!

For reference, we are using 2013 Macbook Airs, Microsoft Office 2011, and Microsoft hosted exchange...

Help! Anyone have any ideas?

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We have repeated this on multiple computers...
 
Additional note

It appears this ONLY happens with Vcard-originated new contacts - NOT new contacts that we just open through Outlook. Huh.

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So, the 'notes' text for a vcard-originated new contact, vanish simultanesouly when the bottom right 'sync status' (tied to our exchange account) activates and syncs???
 
If you shortened the thread title to "Disaster! Outlook 2011!" I would simply agree with you.

In my opinion, Outlook is simply terrible in more ways than can be listed. I don't think it has ever handled vCards correctly.
 
I tested your scenario and it did the same thing to me...about one minute and the notes I typed disappeared.

I don't have a clue as to why this happens but if you click on the "save" icon (the single floppy...top left...not the "Save & Close" icon) before you start editing then you shouldn't have any problems.
 
Save doesn't work

Thanks for trying it out - not sure if I am encouraged or discouraged that you had the same result :)

Unfortunately, we've tried opening the cvard, clicking save (the disc icon), and then start typing in notes - same result - when the system gets around to 'syncing,' it deletes all the text you've entered.

It 'may' be a work-around to actually open the file, then actually force a sync, and then start typing... I've been testing it out - but Microsoft Exchange doesn't seem to like it when you are forcing syncing that often... but it seems to work - when you hit 'sync now' the bottom right 'status' thing says 'contact uploading' and then you seem to be good to go ahead and type.

Very odd stuff...
 
I see what you mean. My sync must have occurred immediately after I clicked "Save".

I think that, in many ways, the native Mac apps handle Exchange accounts better than Outlook 2011. If you're able to add the account in Mac "Contacts" (or Address Book) you probably won't have this problem when you open a Vcard.
 
Would love to... but

the Contacts app in OSX is just so simple, so basic, that we can't really use it for work purposes.

You can search it, sure, but the available 'views' are so non-existent, the lack of sortable columns of data, etc. make it a no go...

Are there any 'extensions' or something that you can layer on top of the default contacts app to make it more powerful?
 
Tested it here did the same thing. Once the text disappears I reentered the text and this time the text stays. Didn't do any kind of save or anything, just reentered the text. Very odd
 
austincolby said:
the Contacts app in OSX is just so simple, so basic, that we can't really use it for work purposes.

You can search it, sure, but the available 'views' are so non-existent, the lack of sortable columns of data, etc. make it a no go...

Are there any 'extensions' or something that you can layer on top of the default contacts app to make it more powerful?
Click to expand...

Not really implying that you bail on Outlook...just thinking that for the Vcard import and initial note entry you could use Contacts.

You haven't really expounded on this workflow so it's hard to come up with suggestions.
 
What I really need is more robust searching, sorting, etc. in Contacts

What I really need is much more robust searching, sorting, etc. from Contacts. Let's say I have 1000 contacts scattered between 50 companies. The way it is set up now, if I want to skim let's say, job titles, for everyone at X company, I guess I i) search by the company, ii) then go through every resulting contact, one by one, looking for the job title/individual I am looking for...

This is as opposed to having say a 'view' that enables me to show names, companies, and job titles, in perhaps 3 columns...

Point being, Contacts is great for what it is - a personal rolodex - it is absolutely underpowered for any kind of business use...
 
It's Microsoft - "it's a feature, not a bug" is their motto.

Whenever I posted a question to the Outlook for Mac forum at Microsoft Community, or even contacting MS Support regarding any issues, the response would normally be "this is the first version of Outlook for Mac - we don't plan on adding that feature - maybe the next version will have it" or "yeah, we know about that problem, but don't know when we'll get around to fixing it".
 
I hear what youre saying. Unfortunately Outlook 2011, the whole Office 2011, will never be fully compatible with its Windows sibling. I use Office 2011 daily, but I always verify important documents through a parallels VM with win7 and Office 2010 just to make sure everything is in working order. Would love not having to do that.
 
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