Section 68. Create and Manage Contacts


68. Create and Manage Contacts

SEE ALSO

10 Synchronize PIM Data with Your PC

69 Create and Manage Mailing Lists

70 Apply Categories to Contacts

71 Tweak Address Book Options


The Address Book application on your device is in many ways a simple database, and the data it stores is contact information for people with whom you want to interact using your device. This interaction can be a phone call, an email message, a PIN message, or an SMS messageall these forms of communication are linked with the BlackBerry address book. Not surprisingly, creating and managing contacts is an important part of communicating using your device. Creating a new contact is as simple as entering the contact information for a person you'd like to add to the address book. You can get as detailed as you want when it comes to entering information about the person's name , company, job title, and home and work addresses ( snail mail and email) and phone numbers . You can also categorize contacts, which aids in navigating the contact list because you can filter the list according to categories.

1.
Launch the Address Book Application

Scroll to the Address Book icon and click the trackwheel. The Address Book application is launched and displayed on the screen. If you haven't created any contacts yet, the contact list is likely empty. However, if you've synchronized contacts with your desktop PC, you might see some contacts in the list.

68. Create and Manage Contacts


TIP

If you already use an address book in a personal information management (PIM) client such as Microsoft Outlook, consider synchronizing PIM data between your BlackBerry device and your desktop PC using the BlackBerry Desktop Manager software. See 10 Synchronize PIM Data with Your PC to find out how.

2.
Create a New Contact

Click the trackwheel and select New Address from the menu that appears. Click again to begin creating a new contact; the New Address screen appears.

3.
Enter the Contact Details

The New Address screen includes several fields for entering a variety of details about the new contact. You can enter as many or as few of these details as you want, although I recommend starting by entering the contact's first and last names in the First and Last fields. From there, it's up to you how much information you want to provide about the contact. Just keep in mind that some of the information determines how you can communicate with the contact later. For example, you won't have the option to address an email message to the contact unless you provide an email address in the Email field. There is also a PIN field for entering the contact's PIN, which allows you to send PIN messages to the person; only BlackBerry devices have PINs, and PIN messages can be sent only between BlackBerry devices. If you want to be able to make a phone call to the person, fill out at least one of the phone number fields ( Work, Work 2, Home, Home 2, Mobile, Pager , and Fax ).

TIP

Notice that only one Email field is shown on the New Address screen. You can add email addresses by clicking, selecting Add Email Address from the menu, and clicking once more. You can add up to two more email addresses for a contact. To remove an email address you've added, click the trackwheel, select Delete Field , and click again.

A few other notable contact fields on the New Address screen include the Web Page field and the Notes field. The Web Page field allows you to specify the web address of a contact, which can be his company website or personal website. The Notes field enables you to enter any additional notes about the contact, which are entirely up to your discretion.

4.
Create a Custom User Field

A series of four user fields ( User 1, User 2, User 3 , and User 4 ) provides a way of entering any extra contact information you want. In fact, you have the flexibility of renaming these fields across all contacts to accommodate additional information such as the birthday or anniversary of each contact. To change the name of a user field, click the field, select Change Field Name on the menu that appears, and click again. A dialog box appears that allows you to enter the new field name.

One of the most common uses of the custom user fields in the address book is to add a birthday field for all your contacts. Nothing quite makes a statement like remembering a client's birthday and sending him a quick note or card. To create a birthday field, enter Birthday as the name of the user field in the Change Field Name dialog box. The field name changes to Birthday on the New Address screen, where you can then enter the contact's birthday.

TIP

Other possibilities for custom fields include fields for a contact's anniversary, spouse's name, children's names, and hobbies, to name a few. If you manage a sales force, you might consider creating a custom sales quota field.

5.
Select Categories for the Contact

In addition to custom user fields, an important organizational property named Categories allows you to categorize the contact. When you double-click the Categories field, the Select Categories screen appears and enables you to select one or more categories for the contact. Categorizing your contacts is a handy way to organize them. I selected Personal as the category for the contact in the example shown because my friend Elvis has no connection to my work. You might opt to create detailed categories to further distinguish between different types of work contacts; see 70 Apply Categories to Contacts .

6.
Save and View the Contact

When you finish editing the new contact, click the trackwheel, select Save from the menu that appears, and click again. The new contact is saved and added to the address book. The contact is now ready to be used as the recipient of email messages, PIN messages, SMS messages, and phone calls.

TIPS

To send a text message or call a contact, click the contact's name in the contact list; select Email Contact Name , PIN Contact Name , Call Contact Name , or SMS Contact Name from the menu that appears; and click once more. Some of these commands might not be available depending on whether you've specified an appropriate address for the contact. For example, if you haven't specified a PIN for a contact, you won't see PIN Contact Name on the menu when you click the contact.

If your address book grows to fill more than one screen of data, you can quickly scroll up and down the contact list a screen of data at a time by holding down the Alt key while scrolling the trackwheel.




BlackBerry in a Snap
BlackBerry in a Snap
ISBN: 0672326701
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 149

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net