Droid joining contacts incorrectly

[MouseLover]

I'm extremely frustrated after about 30 minutes of playing with this. I have three contacts I want to join; Stacey, Sue, and Workplace. I want them to be listed under Workplace, so I selected Workplace then join contacts and added Sue and then its listed under Sue. So I separate them and tried it the other way, selected Sue and adding Workplace and its still listed under Sue. I then created a new contact under Workplace named Sue and its listed under Sue. So I tried vise versa and then tried with Stacey. Regardless of what combination of things I try I cannot get these contacts to be listed under Workplace and I have no idea why. Can anyone help me before I throw this phone out the window?

 

[Zenmervolt]

I'm not sure what you're attempting to do here.

The "Join Contacts" is for merging two entries into a single entry in cases where a contact is duplicated (e.g. you have a person, say, "John Doe", on your contact list twice, once with his home number and a second, separate, time with his work phone) and you want to merge (or, "join") the two entries into a single entry that has both phone numbers.

You can separate contacts by account (e.g. Facebook, MS Exchange, GMail, etc) and choose which accounts to display at any given time, but that's not the same as having multiple category groupings within the overall contact list.

If you are maintaining your contacts through GMail, you can set the contact groupings through GMail and then choose which GMail contact groups to display, but you can't manage which GMail contacts are in which groupings from the Contacts program on the phone; it has to be done through the GMail site. Also, when scrolling through contacts in the Contacts program, the phone doesn't display which grouping a particular contact is in.

 

[MouseLover]

Ok, well I have 3 phone numbers that all go to one Dr's office, but they're different doctors and stuff, so I wanted to group them all in one so that I didn't have random people floating all over my contacts list.
I understand what its used for, but say we have Joe Smith and Joseph S and we want to group them together as Joe Smith, but it keeps setting it as Joseph S, do we have to physically go in and change both names just to get it to be Joe Smith?

 

[MouseLover]

Ok, nevermind, I'm going to do it a different way. I didn't realize you could customize the phone number list, the work, home mobile. So I just put the people's names in the box instead, this will work better anyway. Thank you for your time though, I really appreciate it.

I think the problem was that maybe it recognizes names and therefore since Workplace isn't a name it always chose the name Sue over the Workplace. I'm not sure if it actually does that, but it's just a theory.

 

[Zenmervolt]

say we have Joe Smith and Joseph S and we want to group them together as Joe Smith, but it keeps setting it as Joseph S, do we have to physically go in and change both names just to get it to be Joe Smith?

Yes, that is correct. To merge the contact information, both contacts would need to have the exact same name entered.

 

[mark729]

when you try to save address from map it doesnt go to each line like zipcode to zipcode, state to state, city to city.....it just goes to all into street line.

 

[shosh]

Droid won't display all Contacts from Google Gmail

I have spent countless hours the past month since I bought my Droid trying to find out why the number of contacts displayed on the Droid is less than the number of contacts in my Gmail account. I tried resyncing, checking all the display options on the Droid, and even replaced the Droid itself at the suggestion of Motorola's tech support. Finally, Motorola's Level 3 Tech Support admitted to the following bug, although they (maddeningly) refused to used the word "bug" and refused to tell me whether or not anyone is actively working to correct this problem, nor what I could do to work around it. (They acted like it was an intentional design attribute!!!)

BTW, I have already used the excellant feature on Google to Find Duplicates and Merge them. That feature, on the Gmail web site, finds all the Contacts with the same name, and at your option, merges *all* the data into one Contact, so no data is lost.

The problem is on the Droid. I am unclear as to whether the problem is limited to the Droid or if it exists on the Android OS as a whole. On the Droid, it finds all records which have a common tel number and arbitrarily will only display one of them. (No one can accurately tell me which one it chooses to display BTW.) The ones which are hidden from display do not show up in any searches.

For example, let's say you have two contacts set up for Joe and Mary because they each have different mobile tel's and different work addresses, etc. However, let's say they happen to share an old home tel from 25 years ago that you never deleted back from college days, something you forgot was even there. Whoops -- one of the contacts will not display on the Droid! Now, let's say you are on the street and you are in an emergency, alone -- just you and the Droid -- and you must reach Mary. You do a quick search for her name but the Droid comes up empty. What??? You know she's there, but you absolutely cannot find her. In this example, you will not think of searching for Joe. Your Droid is simply supposed to find Mary because she is in your database. Right????

Now, even if there were a way to manually fix my data (which I am not happy about, since over 300 of my app. 3700 records are not displaying) how can I identify where or what are these 300 records are?

This is a major disaster. Help?

 

[lisa97225]

Wierd!

I'm not sure why you're having that issue. Mine doesn't do that. I have, for example, an uncle, a cousin, and my cousin's child who all live in the same house (same home #). I have them each listed separately in my Contacts, and they all show up as a separate contact. When I open each, it lists their cell, email, and home number. I'm not having any trouble "finding Mary!" That would really suck, though!

 

[Flomaster]

sorry sosh I am not sure what problem you are having its way over my head.

are you saying Joe has phone number 000 123 4567
and Mary has phone number 000 123 4567

Mary is being merged with Joe and a search for Mary comes up empty?

EDIT: I just created 2 contacts
James smith and Jane smith
they both have the same phone number
the both have the same address
I synced my gmail contacts and when they remained separted they were NOT joined even though they had the same home address and phone number
-=Jason=-

 

[MiXoLoGiSt]

I have had a problem with contacts merging automatically by similar name.

Like i already had a Tammy in my phone and i went to add a completely different person named Tamara and it automatically merged it with Tammy's info. It was pissing me off so i had to put Tamara in as Little Tamara. Any idea if there is a way to fix this?

 

[shosh]

Responding to Flomaster with the Joe and Mary example. They are not merged in Gmail. The problem is that they do not both display on the Droid. Are you not able to recreate that?

Try this: Create the example just like you described it, say with the same work tel for both Joe and Mary, but give them each a different mobile tel. (Now that's a realistic example, right?) Be sure to create the contacts in Gmail, not on the Droid -- it might make a difference. (All of my contacts were initially on Gmail and then synced onto the Droid -- again a realistic example since the Droid is a newer product than Gmail.)

Now, go to the Droid and try to search for Joe. Now, try to search for Mary. I believe you will find one but not the other. Big problem!

Here's another weirdness -- whichever one is missing, now go to Gmail, and look up the mobile tel for the one which was hidden on the Droid. Now, manually dial the mobile tel on the Droid for the one which the Droid could not find when you searched. Surprise -- the name will pop up when it dials the number -- proving that the Contact is indeed on the Droid, but it is hidden.

Yes, Motorola is calling this some kind of "merging" but I would call it instead "hiding" because the records are there and can be found individually by the Droid except when we (as users) are looking for them. Arghhh.

Still asking for help. I have over 300 of these records which the Droid is hiding from view or searching. Major problem.

 

[Flomaster]

Responding to Flomaster with the Joe and Mary example. They are not merged in Gmail. The problem is that they do not both display on the Droid. Are you not able to recreate that?

Try this: Create the example just like you described it, say with the same work tel for both Joe and Mary, but give them each a different mobile tel. (Now that's a realistic example, right?) Be sure to create the contacts in Gmail, not on the Droid -- it might make a difference. (All of my contacts were initially on Gmail and then synced onto the Droid -- again a realistic example since the Droid is a newer product than Gmail.)

Now, go to the Droid and try to search for Joe. Now, try to search for Mary. I believe you will find one but not the other. Big problem!

Here's another weirdness -- whichever one is missing, now go to Gmail, and look up the mobile tel for the one which was hidden on the Droid. Now, manually dial the mobile tel on the Droid for the one which the Droid could not find when you searched. Surprise -- the name will pop up when it dials the number -- proving that the Contact is indeed on the Droid, but it is hidden.

Yes, Motorola is calling this some kind of "merging" but I would call it instead "hiding" because the records are there and can be found individually by the Droid except when we (as users) are looking for them. Arghhh.

Still asking for help. I have over 300 of these records which the Droid is hiding from view or searching. Major problem.

I will try when I get home if I can remember to do so, I created my contacts via the droid not via Gmail.com so that might make a difference

-=Jason=-