Outlook 2007 contact group now supported!

[bender999]

Sorry it took so long, i went out

Ok, so the challenge here is to allow you to use your app AND have your contacts in the iPhone separated into groups. I would think that the app would do this for you.

Here are 2 options i can think of:
1) Get a contacts app that can organize your contacts into groups AND allow you to create email/text lists.

2) Use Outlook folders to make groups in your iPhone contacts, and use another method (i.e. workaround) to create email lists.

Option 2 workaround can be done by sending an email using your computer.

If I'm guessing right, you have all your individual contacts in that "Contacts" folder (directly under the Group labeled My Contacts) and those first 6 "contact cards" are what your app uses to do its thing. And that if you clicked on the folder in the left pane labeled "Navy email list" it would have no individual contact cards, just maybe the "Group Card" that I think contains the Distribution List.

But to make Groups appear in your iPhone, use Outlook to organize. In Outlook, you have to copy or move each individual contact card from the "Contacts" folder (directly under the Group labeled My Contacts) into the other folders you have listed on the left. If you copy, then on your iPhone you will have a duplicate of every contact in the All Contacts list. That's why I moved mine instead of copied. The quickest way to move is drag n drop. Maybe try this with a few contacts and see if things are still acceptable with your email-list-making app. Maybe you will just need to redo your lists with the iPhone app after you've got the above steps done and synced.

Note: Making Groups in Contacts in Outlook is just for visually organizing contact folders in the left pane. I don't know of any other purpose for creating these...

 

[Deerhead]

Please see my responses in RED below

Ok, so the challenge here is to allow you to use your app AND have your contacts in the iPhone separated into groups. I would think that the app would do this for you. It does, but not Outlook 2007 EMAIL groups, see above, it allows onlt those email addresses individually listed in the CONTACTS GROUP to be in a group on my iPhone

Here are 2 options i can think of:
1) Get a contacts app that can organize your contacts into groups AND allow you to create email/text lists.

2) Use Outlook folders to make groups in your iPhone contacts, and use another method (i.e. workaround) to create email lists.

Option 2 workaround can be done by sending an email using your computer.

If I'm guessing right, you have all your individual contacts in that "Contacts" folder (directly under the Group labeled My Contacts) YESand those first 6 "contact cards" are what your appNO, these are only for use using my computer uses to do its thing. And that if you clicked on the folder in the left pane labeled "Navy email list" it would have no NO, just the opposite, the Navy Email List has all my individual contacts, and if you had an Outlook 2007 business card group the app doesn't see it, only individual contactsindividual contact cards, just maybe the "Group Card" that I think contains the Distribution List.

But to make Groups appear in your iPhone, use Outlook to organize. In Outlook, you have to copy or move each individual contact card from the "Contacts" folder (directly under the Group labeled My Contacts) into the other folders you have listed on the left. If you copy, then on your iPhone you will have a duplicate of every contact in the All Contacts list. That's why I moved mine instead of copied. The quickest way to move is drag n drop. Maybe try this with a few contacts and see if things are still acceptable with your email-list-making app. Maybe you will just need to redo your lists with the iPhone app after you've got the above steps done and synced. I think this is what I did

Note: Making Groups in Contacts in Outlook is just for visually organizing contact folders in the left pane. I don't know of any other purpose for creating these...

Thanks for the help. I will review your suggestions in greater detail.

 

[bender999]

Ok, so there are individual contact cards in the contact folders such as "Navy email list". This means that in the iPhone's (native) Contacts, you have a group called "Navy email list" and it lists the same individual contact cards. Right? If so, then I was a bit mixed up So this means the missing data you were originally talking about were the Lists, not the individual contact cards?

I think I got it. You want the iPhone to be able to recognize your email lists that you have in Outlook? Yeah this won't happen (at this time) without buying some app from the app store that can do that. In case you want to try this:

Making an email list workaround: start up a new email. add your contacts into the To or CC field. cut all these emails and paste into the body of the email. now send this email to yourself. open this email from your iPhone, copy and paste the string of emails into a new contact card's email field. name this new contact card something like "Navy List". Or you could cut and paste a string of email addresses into Notes, sync, then copy them from the Notes app over to a new contact in the iPhone. But use your email program (Outlook, yahoo, etc) to put the emails together so you dont have to cut and paste each email address or sit there and put a comma between each one. Because you need those commas in there...

 

[Deerhead]

Ok, so there are individual contact cards in the contact folders such as "Navy email list". yes, or the app would not work. It only 'sees' individual email addresses. Actually it only sees the individual's first address, if you have two email addresses for an individual, say a work and home email, if the work email is first in your Outlook 2007 contact card then the app will see only the work address.This means that in the iPhone's (native) Contacts, you have a group called "Navy email list" and it lists the same individual contact cards. Right? Yes, but the iPhone doesn't see, show or list the Outlook 2007 business card group, it is like it doesn't exist If so, then I was a bit mixed up So this means the missing data you were originally talking about were the Lists, not the individual contact cards?Yes, you are more correct in calling them lists than Outlook or iPhone. In my nomenclature I would call them 'distribution lists' not groups, but that's just me.

I think I got it. You want the iPhone to be able to recognize your email lists that you have in Outlook? Yes, to recognize the distribution lists, ie have a single contact 'name' or 'card' that has multiple email addresses nested in it.Yeah this won't happen (at this time) without buying some app from the app store that can do that. In case you want to try this:

Making an email list workaround: start up a new email. add your contacts into the To or CC field. cut all these emails and paste into the body of the email. now send this email to yourself. open this email from your iPhone, copy and paste the string of emails into a new contact card's email field. name this new contact card something like "Navy List".

I think I did this before I bought the app. Be careful of which app you use, although there is a 'distribution list' app, for some reason I didn't buy it and settled on the one I have now 'Group Mail' it cost $1.99 I think. It is well worth it to me. The only down side is when on my laptop and I search addresses I have to remember which 'contact group/left side of screen', to search in

 

[bender999]

I think I did this before I bought the app. Be careful of which app you use, although there is a 'distribution list' app, for some reason I didn't buy it and settled on the one I have now 'Group Mail' it cost $1.99 I think. It is well worth it to me. The only down side is when on my laptop and I search addresses I have to remember which 'contact group/left side of screen', to search in

Yeah, I hear you. There is a search in Outlook Contacts that will search all the folders at once. Click on "All Contact Items" to see/use it. "All Contact Items" is on the left above your groups and folders.

Another thing you could do if sometimes you still have to search addresses by browsing is to make a new folder (not new group) in Outlook Contacts called All Contacts (or whatever you want) and copy all the contacts from the other folders into it. Then when you sync to iPhone, leave this one unchecked. That way, you won't have duplicates in your iPhone. To do this you have to highlight all the contacts in a folder and use the copy and paste functions in the Edit menu drop-down. Repeat for all the folders.

I suspect that Apple didn't include distribution lists for emailing on purpose, maybe at At&t's request. Sending mass emails would take up a lot of bandwidth on their network....

 

[jangell2]

Reading this thread has made me dizzy and if my questions was answered, I can't see the forest for the trees.

Here's my situation. Just got my iphone yesterday, I have the latest version of iTunes on Win7 and I'm using Outlook 2007. I have more contacts in outlook than I want on my iphone.

If I understand correctly, I need to create a group or a folder that contains only the contacts I want to sync. I'd like to create a group (or folder) and COPY all my contacts into it and then delete the ones I don't want to sync.

Having done this I will have a folder or group with just the contacts I want to sync, while still having my original and complete Contacts folder. I then want to tell iTunes that I want to sync with the group or folder that has only a subset of my contacts.

How can I do this? In outlook I have created a Group. Couldn't copy into that. I can move my contacts folder into it, but I've still only got one contacts folder and I can't delete contacts from that. I created an iPhone folder in the My Contacts group, but I can't copy into it.

I'm at a loss at what to do.

 

[bender999]

Jangell2

Jangell2:

Try reading my posts again to see if you can figure it out. Especially what I said about Groups vs. Folders. They are different things in Outlook. You want to make folders, not groups. When the Create New Folder box pops up, select "Contacts" as where you want to place this new folder.

Then populate (by copying or moving) this folder. This folder will show up in the iTunes list, and you can check it for syncing. It will show up in your iPhone Contacts as a group (iPhone calls them groups).

 

[jangell2]

I found there were several key items to know to get this to work.
1) When Apple says Groups, they mean Contact folders
2) When creating a Contact folder be sure it is created as a Contact folder
3) Don't try to copy a Contact folder into the one you created. Copy the contents into the folder.

I was able to finally get a folder that was a copy of my Contact folder and then proceeded to delete what I didn't want on my iPhone.

This would have been easier if iTunes would just present a check list of all my contacts and the user could check the ones to be synced on the iPhone.

 

[bender999]

do the work in Outlook, then sync

I was able to finally get a folder that was a copy of my Contact folder and then proceeded to delete what I didn't want on my iPhone.

This would have been easier if iTunes would just present a check list of all my contacts and the user could check the ones to be synced on the iPhone.

Even easier still is to do all this work (creating, arranging, copying, deleting, etc.) in Outlook. Outlook provides various views to work with that make selecting and arranging very quick and easy, especially when you have lots of contacts like me.


Then sync to the iPhone.

 

[jangell2]

I can see where my writing was not clear. I did do this work on Office. I created the folder, copied into it, and deleted what I didn't want on Office. Then I synced.

 

[CaptainEagle]

iCloud to Outlook 2007

Anyone know how i import iCloud contacts into Outlook 2007?