Contact sub-folders

Let’s make a rule. If you use a mobile device that doesn’t support sub-folders in the address book, don’t bother having sub-folders in your Outlook contacts, ok?

Of course in our office it’s not completely the user’s fault. Some years ago, when upgrading to Office 2000 I think, our IT staff created a backup of the user’s contacts, and a sub-folder that pulled in the old Personal Address book, and most users just left them there, so they have very old information. Of course, when you decide you want a blackberry device, it syncs up all of those contacts in one long list. In theory, having duplicates and very old contact information on your Blackberry is the worst that should happen. Irritating, but relatively painless, and easily correctable by deleting the sub-folders and syncing again. Of course, we don’t live in theory, and somehow, some way, occasionally we get blackberry syncs that wind up deleting contacts that show up in more than one folder, and that’s how a user with 1800 contacts before I connected his new blackberry to his computer, winds up with just over 400 when it’s done syncing, and why one particular help desk guy is going to be spending days trying to get it corrected.

All the missing contacts were in the deleted items folder, along with all the deleted contacts from those extra folders that shouldn’t be there in the first place, there’s really no easy way to tell which ones are correct and which ones are old without at least a passing glance at every one of them. I started that procedure today, I expect to finish it tomorrow and then go back over the contact list one more time looking for stuff that shouldn’t be there at all. Fun, fun. I’ve learned my lesson though, I’m not connecting any new device before I remove any and all sub-folders!

Have I mentioned that I hate Blackberries recently?

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