How can I change Record Creator Act 9.0

[Nanook1231]

Hi guys,

First post so go easy on me.......lol

I am a longtime user of act through many versions and have a database that has contacts that have been created by 4 different users. Currently the only user is me and I only have a license for 1.

I have noticed this in the past and just ignored it, but it is really bothering me now. My problem is that when I do a lookup and sort by say Company the companies are then sorted alphabetically with all the contacts with the first record creator grouped together. I have a long list of companies and then it starts over again alphabetically with the second group of contacts created by the second record creator. Unfortunately I have quite a few companies where there are multiple listings of different people and departments etc created by different record creators.

It seems that when I go to try and change the record creator for any particular contact that field is grayed out and I am unable to change it. I have searched the knowledgebase with quite a few querries to no avail.

If someone could explain to me how to change the record creator so my sorts work correctly on these contacts it would be greatly appreciated. btw it would be really helpful if I could do it on multiple contacts at the same time as I have several hundred that need to be changed

Alan

 

[GLComputing]

There is no option to change the record creator... but this should effect a sort by Company field.

What steps are you using to lookup and sort?

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Aust

http://www.GLComputing.com.au

 

[Nanook1231]

Ok, well then maybe it is possible that there is something else that is causing this. It seems like that would be quite the coincinence though........

Here are the steps I am taking to do my lookup/sort

Lookup > All contacts > View > contact list > edit > sort > sort by

seems pretty straight forward.

Any ideas?

Alan

 

[GLComputing]

When you're in the Contact list, try just clicking on the colum title.

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Aust

http://www.GLComputing.com.au

 

[Nanook1231]

I guess you can not quote on this thread so I am referring to clicking on the column title in the Contact list. I guess this works to sort a lookup this way, sort of..........

Still this same thing happens when I want to add a contact to a Group. I guess you can add groups of companies, but I have not done that and I am not going to.

Here is what I am doing and what is happening:
Groups > add/remove contacts > Contacts and then I need to scroll through the contacts because it forces me to look by last name. I have about 1000 contacts and roughly 1/2 have a contact name and the other 1/2 are the company and a department like AAA Sales, AAA Cust Support, AAA Tech support etc with nothing in Contact. I have Sales, Cust Support as a Department not as a Contact name. What is happening is that the AAA Sales was created by one user and AAA Cust Support was created by another user. When I go to add say support to a group and I go to find it I see AAA Sales at the top and that is it for AAA and now I have to scroll possibly 3 more alphabetic sets of companies to find AAA Cust Support. While not impossible, this is a pain and seems like it should not be happening.

This seems like some sort of a bug and I have reported it, but as usual I am sure they will be slow to fix or never bother at all. Is there some sort of work around that you can think of? This is beginning to be a real PITA for me....

Thanks,

Alan

 

[GLComputing]

It's not a bug. It's sorting excatly as it should. The fact that different users entered the data differently is what is causing your issue and it has nothing to do with the Record Creator field.

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Aust

http://www.GLComputing.com.au

 

[Nanook1231]

um........ well ok,

If it has nothing to do with the record creator, then what is causing this. You say it has to do with different users entering the data differently. What exactly are they doing differently? 2 of the 4 different users were me, and the majority of the contacts were created by one of these two users, me. One had my middle initial and the other does not. I would certainly like to correct this issue especially if I am continuing to create the issue by something I am doing.

The only thing that I could find that was always different in each set of groups was the record creator and that is the only reason I assumed that was what it was. It could certainly be something differn.

If you could shed some more light on this and offer some sort of fix/work around I sure would appreciate it.

Alan

 

[GLComputing]

The first thing to understand is that ACT! doesn't sort by the record creator field.

Why did you have two user names in the database? ACT! is licensed by user name.

When searching for AAA Sales and AAA Cust Support... do both or neither have contact details?

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Aust

http://www.GLComputing.com.au

 

[Nanook1231]

I do understand that it is not sorting by this field unless I tell it to, however there HAS to be a reason that this is happening. It is not an random occurance. It happens consistently and it always sorts things the same way.

I have more than one record creator in my DB because I used to have multiple licenses and multiple users. I bought out my partners and continue in my business alone with only one user, me. Many of the contacts that are in my DB were started many yrs ago with lots of notes and history etc. through the yrs.

There was also a time when I went through an upgrade or something many yrs ago and didn't even realize it, but I changed from no middle initial to my name with a middle initial.

This has left my DB with contacts with 4 different record creators, but all contacts now have the same record manager.

As far as having contact details. Most all contacts in all 4 groups have quite a few details. Notes, histories, addresses , phone numbers etc. There are also some in all 4 groups that have as little as a Company name and Department and a phone #. That is about the minimum that any would have and there are very few like that.

Alan

 

[Nanook1231]

Any idea on this one?

Alan

 

[GLComputing]

I still can't replicate this... just to understand, you're not referring to doing a Lookup in the Contacts or Contact List views? You're only seeing this in the dialog when adding contacts to a Group?

BTW: you say you reported this as a bug... where?

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Aust

http://www.GLComputing.com.au

 

[Nanook1231]

I am referring to all of these situations. If I am in the contact list and then I do a sort this happens, If I am in contacts this happens and if I am adding contacts to a group this happens.

As far as reporting, I just went on the web site and made a suggestion for an improvement. I expect absolutely nothing for a response as that seems to be the standard protocol with them.

Alan

 

[GLComputing]

First re the web site suggestions... they do use those, but it's a questions of how many people request a specific function. If, as in this case, no one else seems to be able to replicate it, it's not easy to do something with.

So, lets just use the Contact List view.

Go to the Contact List, Edit | Sort - select Company and make the field "And then By" to be none

Does this sort as you'd expect? If not how is it worng?

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Aust

http://www.GLComputing.com.au

 

[Nanook1231]

Go to the Contact List, Edit | Sort - select Company and make the field "And then By" to be none

Does this sort as you'd expect? If not how is it worng?

Done:

The sort you suggest works as I would expect. I get all the contacts with company only and a blank contact field first then all the ones with the company sorted a-z.

Unfortunately I usually need to sort first by last name and then by company and the problem occurs when I do a sort like this: Go to the Contact List, Edit | Sort - select Last Name and make the field "And then By" Company

Here is what I get:
First I get all the companies (with record creator #2) with a blank contact field sorted a-z by company name. Next I get all the companies (with record creator #1) with blank contact field sorted a-z by company name. Last I get all the contacts with a contact field sorted a-z by last name.

This is not what I would expect. Here is what I would expect: First all companies with a blank contact field sorted by company name a-z. Next I would expect all records with a contact field sorted a-z by last name.

I am still bewildered by this...........

Alan

 

[GLComputing]

Hmmm... when I tried your sort, I had three contacts out of order... blank contact names, but the companies were not in order.

I put something in the Contact field, saved it then delected the data and re-saved. It then moved the contact to the correct location.

It's possible that the different times the records were added, there was something happening to the database and it inserted bad data.

Can you try the steps I tried above and see if it moves the contacts?

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Aust

http://www.GLComputing.com.au

 

[Nanook1231]

hmmm is right!

I did what you said to do with 3 contacts that all had the same company name but nothing in the contact field. They were not all created by the same user and were not all three grouped together, but now all 3 are grouped together in the second set.

This is sort of disconcerting. I suppose I could go through all the contacts and do as you say, but I would have to do this for several hundred contacts. To make matters worse, every time I enter a new contact with no company only and not contact name, I would have to add a fake name, save, delete and save again otherwise it would not be grouped with all the rest. This is really screwy!

Any more suggestions?

Alan

 

[Nanook1231]

I know it has been a while, but I have not forgotten about this and it is still a problem. Have you or anyone thought of a solution/work around to this problem?

Alan

 

[GLComputing]

It must be something odd in the index... I had not seen it before, and wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it on my own database.

One possible fix that shouldn't take to long that you could try would be to create an empty copy of the database and then export the current one to the new one.

See if it's ok on the new one. If it is, then remove the old one so someone doesn't accidently open it, work on it and you have data all over the place.

Let me know if that worked

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Aust

http://www.GLComputing.com.au