Tales From Tech 2 - Issue: 15

In today's edition, I want to talk about keeping in touch.

One of the most popular requests from our users has been to include extra fields for additional phone numbers on both the family and individual levels. So, in Version 8, we added fields for additional phone numbers.

Anyway, thinking about keeping in touch reminded me of that old saying: Birds of a feather flock together, but if they put all their eggs in one basket, the mice will play.

REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE

You might be asking yourself why I am devoting an entire issue to phone numbers. The reason is simply that I'm concerned that there could be some confusion due to the fact that the types of contact numbers you have for one person or family do not necessarily have to be the same for every individual or family.

Let me explain:

HOME PHONES AND WORK PHONES AND CELL PHONES, OH MY!

In earlier versions of the program, there was one phone number available on the family level. That was the home phone number. On the individual level, there was a field for a work phone number. In today's busy society, people often have multiple contact numbers. There are home phones and work phones and mobile phones. There may be fax machines at work and even at home. To help you keep track of everyone, we have added 2 new contact number fields to the Family Mailing List and 4 new ones to the Personal Profiles.

Now comes the nifty part. After you define the types of contact numbers, you can list different types on each family or individual.

Let me explain...

IF YOU CALL THEM, THEY WILL COME

After you install and begin using Version 8, go to File and then Preferences and bring up either the Family Mailing List Setup screen or the Personal Profiles Setup screen.

On each of these screens, there is a tab called "Phone Number Types." If you go there, you'll see that there are several phone types already defined. You can delete any of these that aren't in use (except for Home Phone from the Family Mailing List and Work Phone from Personal Profiles). You can also add your own phone number types. In fact, you can have 9 different types defined on the family level and 9 different types on the individual level.

Now here comes the neat part. The types of contact numbers that you use for one family or individual DO NOT HAVE TO BE the types of contact numbers you use for another family or individual. In other words, Jack could have a work phone, a second work phone and a pager number, but Diane might have a work phone, a work fax, an emergency number and a mobile phone number. Just because you have one list of phone types on Jack's Personal Profile doesn't mean you must have the same list on Diane's.

Nifty, huh?