What's New in Version 9.1 - Distribution List Editor - Search, Sort, Group, and Filter Contacts

Overview

Version 9.1 improves the Distribution List Editor used for defining recipient lists for email, SMS, or phone reminders. The distribution lists are also used for meeting requests and updates. The Distribution List Editor has been completely redesigned, making it much easier to find and add the desired recipients.

Note: The Distribution List Editor is not available in the Lite version. This editor, as well as the various methods the resulting distribution lists can be used (reminders, meeting requests, etc.), are exclusive to the Pro and Ultimate versions.

Redesigned Editor

For comparison sake, here's how the Distribution List Editor looked in version 9.0.3 and earlier:

Here's how it looks in version 9.1:

The left and right sides of the Distribution List Editor re-use the same list component that is used in the Contacts tab of the main window, so those users already familiar with how that works will find the new Distribution List Editor instantly familiar. Some of the basic capabilities are described below. The user documentation does a much more thorough job of explaining how the Contact list works.

Search, Sort, Group, and Filter

As in the previous editor, the list on the left side contains the members of the distribution. Arrow buttons are provided in the middle of the editor window for adding or removing one or more selected contacts. To search for a contact in either list, type the contact's name (or partial name) in the "Search" field above the list. After typing, click the search button on the right-side of the search field, or press the Enter key. The list will refresh to show only the contacts matching the search criteria. Multiple searches can be performed and the results will be added as tabs at the bottom of the list. To clear all search results and return to the full list, click the X on each tab, or click the X in the Search field.


To sort the list, click the column header you'd like to use for sorting. By default, the "File As" field will be sorted, but any of the other columns can be sorted as well. Click the column again to reverse the sort order. The horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the list can be used to scroll the list and make other columns visible. Columns can also be displayed or hidden by right-clicking the column header and clicking the column names in the popup menu.

 

To group contacts based on value, such as which folder the contact is associated with, right-click the column header and select the "Show Group By Box" command. Next, drag the desired column header into the Group By Box. If there's already a column in the box, or if you don't want contacts to be grouped, drag the column header out of the Group By Box. By default, contacts will be grouped by "Group/Folder" column values. Here's how it looks after disabling the grouping.

 

Contacts can be filtered in two ways. The first is by checking the "Show only contacts beginning with" box, and then typing one or more characters. Only contacts with a "File as" value starting with the specified character(s) will be listed.

The second method is more advanced and allows filtering by values in any column. To access this filter, click the "Filter" button on the right-side of the column header. It looks like a funnel. A menu will appear, similar to the filtering menu provided in Excel 2007 and later, allowing and rows that do not contain the checked value(s) to be filtered from the list.

 

Conclusion

The improved Distribution List Editor makes it much easier to manage distribution lists, especially if there are hundreds or thousands of contacts. In the previous design, it was sometimes difficult to find desired contacts. This is no longer an issue when using the new searching, grouping, and filtering capabilities provided in version 9.1.

blog comments powered by Disqus