Spouses with different surnames

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SoupyGal - 03 May 2006 18:49 GMT

I'm a realtor, and a lot of my clients are couples with different surnames.
What's the best way to enter them? Simply adding the spouse in the "spouse"
field really doesn't work. From my perspective, they're both part of the
same deal, and I should be able to list them within one contact record.
Registering them under a "company name" doesn't work either. I'm working
with Outlook 2003.

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Brian Tillman - 03 May 2006 20:53 GMT

> I'm a realtor, and a lot of my clients are couples with different
> surnames. What's the best way to enter them? Simply adding the
> spouse in the "spouse" field really doesn't work. From my
> perspective, they're both part of the same deal, and I should be able
> to list them within one contact record. Registering them under a
> "company name" doesn't work either. I'm working with Outlook 2003.

There are several ways to do this, but one suggestion I saw was to put them
both in the same category. There's no truly convenient way I know to list
them both in the same contact record.

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Brian Tillman

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LaManchaDQ - 03 May 2006 21:42 GMT

>> I'm a realtor, and a lot of my clients are couples with different
>> surnames. What's the best way to enter them? Simply adding the
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> them both in the same category. There's no truly convenient way I know to
> list them both in the same contact record.

SoupyGal,

What is it that you are trying to accomplish within Outlook that you can't
seem to do?

There are many approaches depending on whether you are frustrated with the
record as it appears in Outlook, if you are using the record for mail
merging, if printing the records doesn't appear correctly. The thing is
that Outlook contacts are designed with the focus on an individual. However
the fields that are available to you capture much and you can use these
fields, forms and views to see and use almost any of that information in
almost any way that you want.

Tell us a little more about what you would like to do and see in the records
and either I or someone else can probably help you easily display or use
that record the way that you want.

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Brian Tillman - 04 May 2006 13:53 GMT

> What is it that you are trying to accomplish within Outlook that you
> can't seem to do?

That was pretty well explained in the original poster's initial message, in
my opinion. Why don't you read it?

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Brian Tillman

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LaManchaDQ - 04 May 2006 17:24 GMT

Brian,
No need to get nasty. Maybe my point wasn't clear to you. If it wasn't
clear to Soupygal I better take a little time here to explain it better. I
believe that the object of the game isn't just to get the spouse's name into
the database of contacts. That is easy and there are alot of different ways
to do it.

The object of creating a database in any program isn't just to store
information in the database. The true utility of such records is the use to
which that information is put. Therefore, Soupygal either wants to view the
information a different way than Outlook gives her as a default. Or she
needs to pull that information and put it into documents for mailing,
emailing, easy retrieval/lookup,

The reaching best solution for Soupygal is finding out what she wants to do
with the data. What field to use is a minor consideration.

One of the solutions I could have said was to modify the form used to
display the record to show both spouses' names. That takes no more than a
minute to do and then every record you look at will have both spouses names
up front a very convenient to view. But is merely viewing the record enough
for what Soupygal needs. I don't know and that is why asked the question
that I did rather than just throwing solutions at her.

>> What is it that you are trying to accomplish within Outlook that you
>> can't seem to do?
>
> That was pretty well explained in the original poster's initial message,
> in my opinion. Why don't you read it?

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Jim McGowan - 11 May 2006 14:52 GMT

Brian, LaMancha:

I can't speak for the OP, but this is an interesting issue that I have
pondered on more than one occasion - without any resolution. So if I
may, here are some of the reasons for wanting the ability to store,
view, and print a spouse's surname when it is different from the
contact's:

When I need to call a contact on the phone, I want to be able to see
all information relating to that contact, including the spouse's full
name if different from contact's. If during the conversation I need
to refer to the contact's spouse, it is a good thing to know the
spouse's name! And "viewing" this information also applies to looking
at it on a printed report or on a Pocket PC or cell phone - assuming I
use my Outlook contacts to populate those things.

When creating a mail merge for a mailing to my contacts, I do NOT want
an address to read "Mr. and Mrs. John Smith" if the surnames are
actually "Mr. John Smith and Mrs. Jane Jones-Smith", or any other
surname that is different from the contact.

Of course just knowing all of this information off the top of my head
is by far the best and most personal way. But I'm afraid that both
the growth of my contacts database to a very large total, along with
this extremely annoying problem of just not being able to remember a
fraction of the stuff that I once could, makes doing it all from
memory a broken dream! ;)

I don't know that there is a good answer for this. Using the Detailed
Information field to keep the spouse's surname, if different, used to
be a solution for the Pocket PC, but the complete botching of
Activesync 4.x along with Windows Mobile 5 has killed that fix;
Contact notes are no longer able to sync to a handheld device.

I fear I would have to use a third-party solution for this issue -
like we all do for many features and functions, as it is unlikely that
Outlook will ever be made to accomodate anything but the most
rudimentary contact management.

If you folks know of a better solution, please do post again.

Thanks.

--
Jim McGowan

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Brian Tillman - 11 May 2006 15:44 GMT

> When I need to call a contact on the phone, I want to be able to see
> all information relating to that contact, including the spouse's full
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> actually "Mr. John Smith and Mrs. Jane Jones-Smith", or any other
> surname that is different from the contact.

Using two separate contacts and assigning them to a single category comes as
close as anything, but as currently designed, I don't think Outlook handles
this as well as some products.

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Brian Tillman

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Jim McGowan - 11 May 2006 21:12 GMT

>Using two separate contacts and assigning them to a single category comes as
>close as anything, but as currently designed, I don't think Outlook handles
>this as well as some products.

Thanks Brian.

I have a feeling that you're right. It would be nice, though, and not
very difficult to remedy this, if Outlook used a database structure
similar to MSSQL. Pity.

Thanks again!

--
Jim McGowan

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