Understanding Outlook FullName field pitfalls to avoid
A recurring issue when it comes to a contact’s name is “missing information” in one or more of the individual fields that comprise a contact’s name (i.e. no “LastName” etc). In the vast majority of cases this is directly related to how the contact’s name was entered when the contact item was initially created.
The “FullName” field is comprised of several individual fields which can be seen when clicking on the FullName button in the detail contact display. These fields are:
- Title
- FirstName
- MiddleName
- LastName
- Suffix
There are two ways to enter a contact’s name when creating a contact item:
- Enter the complete name in the FullName field itself
- Enter the individual fields that comprise the FullName
To guarantee that the contact’s name is accurate, the inidividual elements should be entered separately.
When a contact’s FullName is entered as one item directly into the FullName field, Outlook “parses” (or alternatively stated, attempts to separate the value entered into its component parts. Unfortunately, depending on what the exact value is that is entered, that parsing is not always correct, resulting in values showing up in individual fields that should not be there. This is equally true if importing information directly into the FullName field instead of the individual component parts. When this occurs, it should not be considered an “error” since it is virtually impossible to determine the exact values “all the time”, particularly when different punctuation is used such as comma’s and periods.
It is virtually impossible to tell if the component parts contain the correct value simply by looking at the FullName field itself. Taking the most simplistic of examples, it is possible for the FullName field to show and identical value for 3 different scenarios (for this example, the assumption is that the default format for the FullName is “First Last”):
Scenario #1
- FirstName = “John”
- LastName = “” “Doe”
Scenario #2
- FirstName = “John Doe”
- LastName = “” (no value)
Scenario #3
- FirstName = “” (no value)
- LastName = “John Doe”
In all three cases, the FullName value will appear in the detail contact item as “John Doe” but if you try to do a mail-merge (or export the contact items) – you may suddenly be surprised that things aren’t working the way you expect.
Punctuation used in the FullName value can (and does) have a significant impact on how the value gets “parsed” particularly when multiple words are contained in the FullName. Here again, using the most simplistic of examples, will have different results in what gets populated in the underlying individual fields:
- Doe, John MidName
- Doe John Midname
- Mr. John Doe Jr.
- Mr. Doe Jr., John MidName
A comma after the first word (word group) in the name generally indicates that the first portion represents the LastName. The more punctuation characters are involved and/or the more variations exist as to where individual pieces are contained in the value, the higher the likelihood that the underlying fields will not be accurate. This is most often an issue when importing data where the FullName field. Sample data submitted to ContactGenie support has shown import data files containing full name values with totally inconsistent values for the FullName field making it virtually impossible to get any kind of consistent results.
In short, always enter the individual elements when creating a new contact manually and avoid importing to the FullName field whenever possible. If you want to see how Outlook behaves, simply create a new contact and enter variations of a name into the FullName field and then click on the FullName button to see what actually got inserted into the individual fields.
Category: Understanding Outlook
