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mapping and custom fields in contacts

I am a new iphone user.

I currently have my contacts in Outlook 2007. I have quickly learned that syncing these contacts with iphone is causing some challenges.

I use the fields in outlook called "user field 1" through "user field 4" They are fields that you can cutomize in outlook.

Per a phone call to Apple support yesterday i have learned that contacts on the iphone cannot be custom mapped to outlook, cannot be custom named, and cannot be customized to sync with outlook. Apple suggests that i work within the available fields in contacts.

I would like to get a comprehensive list of what fields are available in the iphone contacts. I suspect that it would be too much to wish for an actual comparison of the standard mapping between iphone contacts and outlook, but i am going to throw it out there anyway.

I am trying to look at this as an opportunity to clean up my contacts, and not a two year committment to a phone that cannot handle some needs in the business community.

Any help would be appreciated.

Posted on Dec 16, 2011 9:29 AM

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Posted on Dec 25, 2011 10:14 AM

It is possilbe the iPhone will not fit your business applications. There are third party apps that will map your Outlook contact fields to the iphone. But, the iPhone base apps are a consumer grade. What is most surprising is the lack of information from Microsoft and Apple on this topic. Then, there is the complete misinformation from users. Here is what I found: (iTunes Sync, Win7, Outlook 2007, iPhone 4s)

Phone Map

OUTLOOKiPhone
Mobile Phone1. Mobile
Other Phone2. iPhone*
Home Phone3. Home
Business Phone4. Work
Primary Phone5. Main
Home Fax 6. Home Fax
Business Fax7. Work Fax
Does Not Work8. Other Fax
Pager 9. Pager
Will go into "Other Phone" if10. Other*

"iPhone" label NOT used

Custom Contacts

ONE custom contact will map to Outlook OTHER if *iPhone and Other are not already in use.

The Custom1-4 in Outlook will not map. period dot ...

Other anoying things I found:

1. I was able to manipulate 6 phone numbers successfully, using all but labels 8 and 10 (other works if you don’t use iphone)

2. I could enter on labels 1-9 and they would transfer IF I entered them in order at the same time.

3. When using over 6 phone numbers, varying results occurred, usually something dropped off.


For me, 4 phones per person and one address is enough. I use the base iPhone phone labels 1,3-7 plus one custom label that maps to OTHER (I call it HIS and pur HERS under mobile and have one contact per married couple. Great way to also have my Christmas list always accurate). So, I do not use the iPhone label on the iPhone. The street address maps from Outlook fine and you can label it home or business. Fact is, the iphone will bring both of those over.


I will be experimenting with iCloud sync and I am sure the results will vary. I will drive slown on that so I dont blow everything up. Hey Apple, you have a great product, but your lack of burning any brain cells whatsoever on this topic is inexcusable. Everyone wants a digital age where one database migrates info from app to app. Outlook is that contact database for 97% of people. Giving us better mapping of that data to your phone is a no brainer. It's stuff like this that makes me give no sympathy to the geeks in the IT department. They have no idea how much time the rest of us waste on the secrets they design into their junk.

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Question marked as Best reply

Dec 25, 2011 10:14 AM in response to evil.innocence

It is possilbe the iPhone will not fit your business applications. There are third party apps that will map your Outlook contact fields to the iphone. But, the iPhone base apps are a consumer grade. What is most surprising is the lack of information from Microsoft and Apple on this topic. Then, there is the complete misinformation from users. Here is what I found: (iTunes Sync, Win7, Outlook 2007, iPhone 4s)

Phone Map

OUTLOOKiPhone
Mobile Phone1. Mobile
Other Phone2. iPhone*
Home Phone3. Home
Business Phone4. Work
Primary Phone5. Main
Home Fax 6. Home Fax
Business Fax7. Work Fax
Does Not Work8. Other Fax
Pager 9. Pager
Will go into "Other Phone" if10. Other*

"iPhone" label NOT used

Custom Contacts

ONE custom contact will map to Outlook OTHER if *iPhone and Other are not already in use.

The Custom1-4 in Outlook will not map. period dot ...

Other anoying things I found:

1. I was able to manipulate 6 phone numbers successfully, using all but labels 8 and 10 (other works if you don’t use iphone)

2. I could enter on labels 1-9 and they would transfer IF I entered them in order at the same time.

3. When using over 6 phone numbers, varying results occurred, usually something dropped off.


For me, 4 phones per person and one address is enough. I use the base iPhone phone labels 1,3-7 plus one custom label that maps to OTHER (I call it HIS and pur HERS under mobile and have one contact per married couple. Great way to also have my Christmas list always accurate). So, I do not use the iPhone label on the iPhone. The street address maps from Outlook fine and you can label it home or business. Fact is, the iphone will bring both of those over.


I will be experimenting with iCloud sync and I am sure the results will vary. I will drive slown on that so I dont blow everything up. Hey Apple, you have a great product, but your lack of burning any brain cells whatsoever on this topic is inexcusable. Everyone wants a digital age where one database migrates info from app to app. Outlook is that contact database for 97% of people. Giving us better mapping of that data to your phone is a no brainer. It's stuff like this that makes me give no sympathy to the geeks in the IT department. They have no idea how much time the rest of us waste on the secrets they design into their junk.

Dec 25, 2011 12:10 PM in response to navdawg1

iCloud sync is different from iTunes sync shown above.

Here is the revised iCloud to Outlook map:

iCloud Sync
OUTLOOKiPhone
Mobile Phone1. Mobile
Company Main2. iPhone
Home Phone3. Home
Business Phone4. Work
Primary Phone5. Main
Home Fax 6. Home Fax
Business Fax7. Work Fax
Does not Work8. Other Fax
Pager9. Pager
Other Phone10. Other

iCloud seems to work better than iTunes sync

All 10 standard iPhone labels transferred to Outlook and could be manipulated out of order on the iPhone

Big difference is iPhone maps to Company Main (see previous post)

If you do not use the iPhone label, the first custom label will map to Company Main

You can use 4 custom iPhone labels if none of the standard iPhone labels are used.

Here is the 4 Custom iPhone labels map:

Using ONLY Custom Labels:

Outlook

iPhone
Primary PhoneCustom 1
Business PhoneCustom 2
Home PhoneCustom 3
Company MainCustom 4


Computer science geek = no common sense. Probably needs help deciding if he should take a shower once every 2 or 3 days. Probably weed induced idiocy.

Dec 25, 2011 10:53 PM in response to navdawg1

Thank you so much for the input. I agree that the programmers have no idea how much time gets wasted on these types of problems. This is clearly going to be a work in progress. I suspect I should have paid more attention to the warnings that the iPhone is not a business class item. I found it hard to Believe That apple would ignore such a large customer base. In retrospect another product might have been a better choice. Fortunately I have two years to figure this out.

Oct 10, 2016 10:08 AM in response to evil.innocence

For those who update their Outlook Contacts. Some fields like Other will not populate in your iPhone.

Outlook - iPhone


Assistant – Assistant

Business - Work

Business 2 - Work

Business Fax – Work Fax

Callback – Not in iPhone

Car - Car

Company – Company Main

Home - Home

Home 2 - Home

Home Fax – Home Fax

ISDN – Not in iPhone

Mobile - Mobile

Other – Not in iPhone

Other Fax – Not in iPhone

Pager - Pager

Radio - Radio

Telex – Not in iPhone

TTY/TDD – Not in iPhone

mapping and custom fields in contacts

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