Contact Hierarchy

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TBOttink - 10 Apr 2006 19:03 GMT

Wouldn't it be possible to introduce a 'network pattern' within the Outlook
Contacts?
With network pattern I mean that every contact can be related to one or more
parents and every parent can have one or more childs (like Bill-Of-Material
structure in a relational database). This way it is possible to:
- define non-related contacts with all sorts of detail
- define two contacts with a parent contact witch holds the adress and home
phone (family -- father, mom, child1). The child contacts contain specific
information (birth date, mobile phone etc.)
- define overlapping groups (not possible with a recursive relationship).

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William Lefkovics [MVP] - 10 Apr 2006 22:12 GMT

That's an excellent idea, I think. With an option to print an org chart
based on a contact selection.
Certainly there are accessible fields to enter, like manager's name and
assistant's name. Plus 'Categories' could help, but I don't think it comes
together like you suggest, at least not without some coding.

> Wouldn't it be possible to introduce a 'network pattern' within the
> Outlook
[quoted text clipped - 20 lines]
>
> http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx?mid=76f9453c-8517-4
5ce-b854-6878c69ac316&dg=microsoft.public.outlook.contacts

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TBOttink - 11 Apr 2006 12:05 GMT

True, this change needs additional/other coding in Outlook (preferably also
on Windows Mobile).

This structure does not only suit organisation structures but also family
structures. It would be nice te be able to select a 'parent' and view the
parents properties and it's child properties in one view. The challenge is
how to make this work in the applications (the database is the easy part).
For example:
- How many levels deep should be shown within a parent contact? Just one and
from there navigate further down?
- How should this be dealt with in the contact list/search?

Since I am not a programmer but a more of a database architect and a Outlook
(Mobile) user I'll leave the coding details to the experts.

> That's an excellent idea, I think. With an option to print an org chart
> based on a contact selection.
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
> >
> > http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx?mid=76f9453c-8517-4
5ce-b854-6878c69ac316&dg=microsoft.public.outlook.contacts

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