Ok - this is not unique to the X, but dont know where else to post it. What do you guys do when you have a lot of people from an office with the same office number in your phone? I.e., I work with John, Sally and Chris who all work at ABC Corp and the phone number is 456-789-1234. When ANYONE from the company calls, that caller ID will come through. For whatever reason, my phone will display Sally (example). I only want it to display the company name. What do you do? If I add a dedicated contact for the company, how will it delineate between them?
Random question about contacts
- Thread starter km8j
- Start date
without testing, it's either alphabetical or indexed, meaning it will display the first instance of the phone number it comes across. For me, if I don't have a personal line for an individual, i remove that number from their contact info.
I'm not sure what will happen if you have two contacts with the same number in People. I would guess that whichever comes first in the default sort will appear as the caller.
What I do is set up a contact with just the company name, and put the various contacts for that Co. in the notes field. Of course you won't know "who" is calling you from that company, but if they all have the same number, how is Android to know?
What I do is set up a contact with just the company name, and put the various contacts for that Co. in the notes field. Of course you won't know "who" is calling you from that company, but if they all have the same number, how is Android to know?
D
Deleted member 2351944
Guest
As said above, I can't remember if it's alphabetical or indexed, but I believe it's alphabetical (i.e. if you work with John, Sally and Chris, Chris' name will always show up from that contact). If that's the case, you could create a contact like "A-Acme Corp" since "A" displays higher on the list.
Frankly, though, I don't think it's useful to have multiple people with the same office number, and I just create an office contact and delete the number from the individual contacts. It's not really "their" number if it's shared, so I'd rather have the contact really indicate who I'm calling, which is the company, not the person.
You don't always have control over this, i.e., global address books syncing over Exchange.
most of the companies i've worked for/with have had a phone system with one external, but multiple internal lines. when i sync my contacts with exchange, the internal number is synced, so i am able to dial those individuals directly. however, if they call me, i have no idea who it is.
the only exception i've had to this rule are small businesses where you call and ask if you can talk to "sally" or whatever (or they don't have extensions, or the extensions aren't externally facing, etc). in that case, i don't bother with individualized contacts. i'll have a contact that says, "State Farm (Betty)" or something similar, so I know who to ask for.
Well, my husband, daughter, soon, and I all share the same home phone number. If I look up any of them, I would like that number to be one of the options visible.
This is definitely a valid use case. There has to be a way to set as a default phone number a specific contact, then you would add a generic contact for "home" or "Company XYZ".
D
Deleted member 2351944
Guest
I understand, I'm not saying my solution is the only way to do it. Just that it's one way to do it.
I have a "Home" contact that has my home phone number and home address. I don't need my girlfriend to have our home phone number listed on her contact, I just know I call "home" when I need to call home.
That is certainly a solution. i could set up separate contacts for "home", "husband at work", and "husband's cell phone". But it seems simpler to keep all him contact information in one place. Same for my kids, who also have multiple phone numbers.
A lot of Google services seem to assume that a phone number is only relevant for a single person. I think that's a design flaw, as it's often not true. It's not a big deal in looking up contacts, but google phone numbers are essentially broken, as it won't let two different google phone numbers point to the same home number. (and there are three of us who would like to have the google number ring there at least some of the time.)
to your point, i'd be interested in seeing how other devices are handling it. i don't think its a design flaw at all. phone numbers have "always" been individualized. your home phone goes to "one" caller ID description (whether you change it with the phone co or not) - it's always going to say "The Smiths" regardless of who is placing the phone call to whom.
if you add "The Smiths" phone number to Mr., Mrs., Sally and Jr., it's still "The Smiths" phone number.
Harry Smith could be calling you on your caller ID, but it's really Jr....
i don't know any way around this, personally, short of the suggestions listed above. There's no solution for what you're asking. What do you want, voice recognition? And I'm sorry if that comes off a little snarky, but I honestly can't think of a way to handle a grouping of contacts that use the same contact information. What it sounds like you're asking is a way to create a "The Smiths" phone book entry, and marking it as "show as incoming call" so you don't jump to conclusions of who is on the other line.
I understand that the "from" address has to be "the Smiths", or some single name. But I am really frustrated that Google Voice can't pipe my calls and my son's calls both to our home phone number, even if it could only show one of them names if we replied from that number. Both of us would like to recieve calls at that number when we are at home.
It might be relevant that my house gets lousy service on every major cell carrier.
It might be relevant that my house gets lousy service on every major cell carrier.
well forwarding multiple numbers to a single number is an entirely different issue than your original post. i've never been in your situation (that i can think of) so i can't relate. although i find it interesting google would care how many numbers were forwarded to a single number.
if you're already using google voice numbers, why not use google voice to place calls on your cells? that way, if Jr. gets a call on his GV #, it will ring his personal cell phone.
Because then we don't get calls when we are at home -- thus the desire to have google voice numbers sometimes forward to the home number.
This is actually WHY I don't use google voice. Because so long as it depends on my being the only user of any number I want it to farward to, it's basically broken for me.
Anyhow, I agree that this is entirely different from the problem that started the thread. I just live with the phone always showing my daughter when I place or recieve a call to my home. That's annoying, but not broken from a usability standpoint. (My preference would be for it to show the same person I looked up when I placed the call for outgoing calls, and my husband for incoming calls, since he calls me more than the others, and obviously, the phone has no way to know who is on the other end.) I just brought up the google voice thing to point out that Google doesn't seem to have put a lot of effort into usability when phone numbers are shared.
