Outlook Mobile Team Blog : Smartphone

Texting a Non-Mobile Number

ChaniJ — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:31:00 GMT

Commenter Jakub Anderwald notes how hard it is to send a text message to a home or work phone. I totally agree. These days many people have more than one mobile number and yet we only have space for one mobile number on our phone. As a result people have to store alternate mobile numbers as “work” or “other” and it is harder to send text messages to these numbers.

Jakub mentioned needing to copy and paste the alternate phone number to send a text message. Though not perfect, there are easier ways!

Method 1

Bring up the summary card for the contact you want to text and scroll down to the phone number you want the text to go to. Then you can start a text to that number using Menu -> Send Text Message. In the example below this will send a text message to the work number for Raymond Same.

Method 2

Open a new text message and then choose Menu -> Add Recipient to bring up a list of contacts. Choose the contact that you want to text and it will then allow you to choose which phone number you want to use. The example below also shows how you can send the text to the work number for Raymond Same.

Hopefully these methods will make it a little easier to send text messages to non-mobile numbers and work around the single mobile number limitation.

Quick Note: Email Server Search

ChaniJ — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:15:00 GMT

The other day I was on the way to a potluck with some new friends and I was running late (somehow I always underestimate how long cooking really takes). On my way over I remembered that the location had changed earlier that week and I didn’t actually know where I was going. Checking my email I found that I had deleted the part of the thread with the critical information and only had the emails about what everyone was bringing.

Admittedly that wasn’t very bright of me, but thankfully I had email server search on my phone. From my inbox I used Menu -> Tools -> Search Server and then searched for “potluck” in all folders. It found the email for me and I was able to get to the right place without having to call anyone and admit my mistake. Check it out – it’s a helpful feature, especially when you don’t know where you are going :)

How to Access the Company Directory

Outlook Mobile Bloggers — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 04:52:51 GMT

Did you know that you can search your company directory on your phone? All you need is a Windows Mobile phone and an Exchange account.

How do I get to the company directory?

Open Contacts->Menu->Company Directory

What can I do in the Company Directory?

You can enter a name, email address, or office location and search the company directory. Notice also that your successful searches are saved in the search history below.

A list of resulting contacts will appear. You can view a contact’s detailed information via View. You can also take specific action on this contact. In this case for Kim Abercrombie, we can Call Work, Send e-mail, Save to Contacts, Save to SIM, or Send Text Message. Also, if you need to speak with Kim Abercrombie in person, the Office Location field can help you find her.

You can refine your search via Menu->New Search in the event that

a. You find no contacts

b. You receive a notification that you matched more than 100 contacts, and only 100 contacts are displayed.

c. You simply want to narrow your search results down.

You can also save this contact to your contacts list via Menu->Save to Contacts.

Stay tuned for a future post detailing other ways to take advantage of the company directory!

Finding Contacts FAST for Communication

ChaniJ — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 03:34:00 GMT

Recently I’ve posted a few tips about working with contacts and it has been mostly focused on access from the contacts application or Smartdial. I thought I should touch briefly on integration of contacts into other areas like messaging and calendar that make it really quick and easy to communicate with your contacts.

Personally my favorite way to address new emails or SMS is to use the contacts auto-suggest list from the compose form. In the “To:” field just type name, number, or email of the person you want to communicate with. As you type we’ll search for contacts that match that information and display them in a list. This picture shows auto-suggest for a new SMS indicating the phone number associated with the contacts. In this scenario I also could have searched by typing in the number.

The number of items in the list is limited to keep it from being information overload, so if the suggestions aren’t what you are looking for at first keep typing. When you see the one you want scroll down to it and then action on it to insert it. These images show the process for a new email of typing the first few characters of a contacts name, selecting him from the list of suggestions and the name and email populated in the “To:” field. This also would have worked if you were typing in his email address.

Another means of getting existing contact info is to use the “Select a Contact” dialog. To do this from the “To:” field of the compose form you can either hit Action/Enter or choose Menu - > Add Recipient. This will bring up a filterable list of your contacts (the filtering works just like in the contacts application). These images show accessing the filtering contact chooser dialog through the menu and then filtering down to a particular contact. This is just a different way to do the same thing and it’s your preference if you prefer to go with the auto-suggest or contact selection dialog.

This filterable list of contacts is also available from the calendar application when you are adding attendees to a meeting. From the appointment edit card action on the “Attendees:” field and then choose to add either required or optional attendees. Either way you will be taken to the filterable list of contacts to find your desired attendees. The following images show the process of picking attendees for an appointment and the same contact selection dialog.

Note that both auto-suggest and the contact chooser dialog will only show contacts that have applicable communication methods – for instance if you are composing an email the list of contacts will already be filtered to show only those that have an email address. This is helpful to keep the list manageable and prevent situations where you are trying to send an email with no email address. But it’s a good thing to keep in mind if you are searching for the contact and not finding them that they might not have the applicable information populated.

A caveat here is that only the mobile number counts for auto-suggest in the new SMS form (not work or other phone numbers). If you are trying to send an SMS to a number that isn’t stored in the mobile field you can still access that functionality through the contact summary card, but it definitely is not as convenient. Even so, in conjunction with the contact saving scenario that I covered a few weeks ago this covers many of the cases where you want to work with a contact outside of the contact application quickly and easily.

You’ll actually find the contact selection dialog from many different apps on the device. For instance when you are viewing pictures you are able to add one as the image for a contact and it will give you this dialog to select the appropriate contact. The contact selection experience is available across the device and enables quick filtering to find the person you are looking for.

As always, you can learn more about your Windows Mobile phone at The Windows Mobile Help & How-To page (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/en-us/help/default.mspx).

Saving Information to a Contact

ChaniJ — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 06:29:00 GMT

Creating a new contact from scratch is straight-forward enough both on the desktop and on your phone through the contacts application. But sometimes you have information you want to store before you have the contact itself. You may not have cut-paste access to this data or even if you did you want an easier way to get the data into a contact.

In this case you may often see a “Save” option that will allow you to do this in a stream lined way. There are many locations providing this options but let’s take the dialer as an example. Say you get a call from Bob Kelly, a new friend that you met recently. When the call is over you want to save the number so you can call him again. In the dialer you will see their number in the list and the “Save” option.

When you choose save you will see a list of all your contacts, in case this was an additional number for someone you already know, but at the top you will also see “<New Contact>”. Since you don’t have a contact for Bob yet you select that option.

At this point you see a simple interface to get the basic information in about the contact: first name, last name, and communication type. The phone number is already filled in for you, but you still get to specify the type of phone – mobile, work, home, etc.

When you are done entering your information you hit Save and the summary card will be brought up to display the information you just entered. This is the same card you would see if you opened the contact from the contacts application. If there was additional information you’d like to provide about Bob, perhaps the company he works for, you can open up the full contacts edit card by choosing “Menu->Edit”.

A recent call in the dialer is just one scenario for saving data in this way. Others include:

From an email – Action on the sender while viewing an email to bring up a temporary contact card that displays the user name and email address. From here you can choose Save to get that information into a contact.
From a text message sender – Action on the phone number when viewing a text message that has not been matched with a contact and you will get an option to create a new contact and start this process.
From the body or subject of a text message or email – If someone sent you a text message or email with a phone number in it you can action and then choose Menu -> Save to Contacts to start this process for that number.
From the dialer – If someone gives you their number and you type it into the dialer but don’t want to call them right then you can choose Save instead to keep the information for later.

If you’d like to learn more about your Windows Mobile phone check out The Windows Mobile Help & How-To page at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/en-us/help/default.mspx.

Call History Per Contact

ChaniJ — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 04:24:00 GMT

In WM6 we did a bit of work to make it easier to track your call history with a particular person. So, in addition to being able to see your entire call history you can now get individual call history from your contact card. This is a feature I'm particularly fond of, so I thought I'd point it out and run through the details.

You find this feature in the contacts card of someone you've called or who's called you. Just under the header you'll see a new field that says "Last Call". This field gives you information about your last phone communication with this contact:

The time of the last call, or the date if it wasn't today
The number that was used - in case your contact has multiple numbers like mobile, work, home, etc...
The direction of the call in an icon - outgoing, incoming, or missed

If you action on this new field you'll be taken to a list of all your phone communication with the contact. More recent communications are at the top and each one indicates all the information shown for the "Last Call" plus the duration of each communication. From this list you can delete individual call logs, delete all call logs, or of course call someone back if you are feeling more generous :)

If you are trying to find out how many times your mom called you last week this would be the way to go, and you can even get to it from the call history list by actioning on a particular call to bring up the contact card. Of course you can still see your full call history from the dedicated app with calls to all contacts sorted by time. There you can filter for missed, incoming and outgoing calls as well.

Windows Mobile 6 is here...!!!

zhamid — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 03:48:00 GMT

Drool...

After sooo many months of development, it's finally here. Public! We can write about it. We can show it off. Yes!!!!!

Over the next few days developers, testers and program managers in the Outlook Mobile team will write about features they worked on here. But lets do some high-level overview here.

So what's so cool about Windows Mobile 6? Well, it's not a comprehensive list but some of the things I like about WM6 are:

New look and feel, new icons, new sound ... little things amuse me :).
It's faster!
More secure. More cryptography. You can read and compose rights-managed mails (IRM). You can also open rights managed Office documents. It's awesome.
Ready for this? You can read HTML Mail! Yup, rich emails with images, tables, formats and much more!
Comes with Windows Live (was that too much to ask). Hotmail, MSN Messenger, Spaces...it's all in here! You can chat with multiple people at the same time.
Keyboard Shortcuts in Messaging: It seems lame, but it's super useful. Press-and-hold a shortcut key and boom, the action happens.
You can also set Out of Office messages on your exchange server using the phone. I actually use it every time I am away (yes yes, I have a bad memory and forget to set my OOF message on the desktop before I leave).
Exchange e-mail search! You can search your emails stored on the server from your device.
Quickly fetch e-mail messages from the server, instead of having to do a full sync (like in Windows Mobile 5). Emails now show this useful statusbar showing what's happening. The status bar actually goes away when there's no update to show to maximize real estate.
You can finally flag e-mail messages and sync that with the server. Makes e-mail management really easy. No more marking the email as unread to remember to action on it on the desktop later. Just flag it!
The infamous IMAP namespace issue is ... drumroll ... fixed! That's right. Fixed!!!! We had so many questions about it that I had to post an apology. But it's fixed.
What else did we fix? Oh ya, multiple accounts in Messaging sync just fine. Schedule sync works! And the reply-all bug y'all complained so much about (well, at least some of you did) is also taken care of. See, we do listen!
Call history is now linked to contacts, so it gives you context. Open a contact and see when else you communicated with that contact. Missed a call? Now instead of just seeing the number you missed, open the contact and communicate however you want (other phone numbers, SMS, IM...).
The calendar app has this fancy ribbon thing that summarizes the day. It's more useful than it seems. I'll let Calendar folks talk about their stuff in a later post.
Works magically with Windows Vista.
.NET CF 2.0 and Mobile SQL Server!
Support for storage card encryption and storage card wipe.

...and a ton more. This is the list off the top of my head of stuff that *I* enjoy.

So where are some screenshots, you ask? Fair question. In my excitement I don't want to hold this post for screenshots. They'll follow.

Some cool devices for the Holidays...

zhamid — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 01:41:00 GMT

First, please accept my apologies for being away for so long. I took some vacation (okay, a lot of vacation days) and training. Rest of the time was spent frantically catching up. I'll be taking nearly all December off, so happy holidays.

I figured I'd write about some cool devices before taking off. This is not a comprehensive list by any means. I was told there are 100+ Windows Mobile devices out there. Just a few :-

T-Mobile Dash / HTC s620

T-Mobile Dash, also known as HTC s620 in some markets, comes with 64MB memory, microSD expansion (those things are tiny), 1.3 mega pixel camera and a large 2.4" color screen. It's got it all: quad-band, Wifi, bluetooth...you name it. And yes, it does have Windows Mobile 5.0 with Messaging and Security Feature Pack (always-up-to-date e-mails baby).

Cingular 8525 / HTC TyTN

This UMTS device also has GSM / GPRS / Edge connectivity, as well as WiFi, Bluetooth and mini USB. Better camera (2 mp) with flashlight only sweatens the deal. Oh, and did I say it has 128 MB ROM and 64MB SDRAM?

Cingular 3125 - HTC STARTrk

Now to clamshell (flip) phone lovers, Christmas came early this year for clamshell lovers.

Cingular Blackjack (US) / Samsung SGH i607 (elsewhere)

Wow! And you thought Moto-Q was cool. Similar to HTC Dash, it's a wide-screen Smartphone device with full QWERTY key board. Vodaphone, TIM and Bouygues carry it in Europe and Singular in the US. It's also sold unlocked. They said it was the thinnest and smallest Windows Mobile device yet to ship with a full QWERTY keyboard. I haven't had my hands on it yet, so I can't judge.

O2 XDA Stealth

It seems that this baby is for Eruope only for now. It does have a touch screen and slide-out keyboard.

Pharos GPS phones

There are also some cool GPS devices. Check out Pharos PPC 525e and Pharos PPC 600e.

Finally there's always Moto-Q and Palm Treo devices. Oh there are so many others. This was a good year. No, scratch that. This was a great year!

Dash...

zhamid — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 20:38:00 GMT

Check out this baby! The new Smartphone from T-Mobile :-

It's a wide-screen Smartphone with a Qwerty keyboard that's been getting really good reviews.

Check out this at brighthand: http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=12467.

Sadly, I haven't played with it yet :(. I'll post my own review as soon as I get my hands on it. Now please excuse me while I wipe all this drool off my keyboard.

QnA: Can I save mails on a storage card?

zhamid — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 17:13:32 GMT

Question:

I have a T-mobile SDA. There is a limitation of base memory size on the phone. I would like to move my outlook folder to default on the micro SDA card rather than on the main memory of the phone.

I sync with my corporate email and I get a error of low storage space.

Any help with this would be appreciated.

Answer:

Hi Neil,

Unfortunately at this time you’re stuck at using the main memory. I am sorry this isn’t as pleasant an experience as we would have liked it to be. Perhaps you could narrow your sync window (eg. download the past day’s messages only) or decrease the default sync size (eg. set it to 0.5 KB). If you’ve installed apps that you don’t use anymore then you could consider removing them to free up some space.

Since installing apps on an SD card works, I normally install programs on the storage card. I also keep my music, pictures and other files there. It’d be ideal to be able to keep my e-mails there too, but these are some workarounds that may work.

Thanks. Please don’t hesitate to ask if you have any other question.

Zeeshan Hamid.

QnA: Can I configure a default root folder for my IMAP account?

Outlook Mobile Bloggers — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 11:17:00 GMT

Question:

I have recently moved to the windows mobile platform and am having trouble with Outlook and IMAP. Is there any way for me to configure the root folder fore IMAP in the settings? My IMAP folders are under ~/mail/ of my account and Outlook Mobile unfortunately tries to get all the folders under ~/

Answer:

IMAP is a very 'flexible' standard, to say the least, so it is difficult to support the multitude of available servers, each configured slightly differently. We strive to support as many servers as we can, but some configurations are simply incompatible with our methodology or result in a poor user experience.

In your case, the incompatibility stems from the fact that the mail server does not confine the IMAP client to the mail folder. This causes our IMAP client to crawl through and synchronize the entire folder hierarchy instead of just the relevant mail folders. With a sufficiently large and complex folder hierarchy, this is enough to cause significant user pain in the form of wasted time, memory, and bandwidth.

Some mail clients get around this issue by allowing the user to specify a new root folder. Unfortunately the WM 5.0 IMAP implementation does not support a user configurable root folder.

Configurable IMAP folders (root, deleted, sent) have been requested and considered in the past. But due to the vagaries of the software development process, this feature has slipped through the cracks. We are always working to empower our users, and I hope that we can address this issue in a future release.

Thanks,

Jeffrey Min

SDE, Outlook Mobile

QnA: How come some Outlook fields are not sync-ed to device?

Outlook Mobile Bloggers — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 16:42:00 GMT

Question:

Why does pocket outlook not contain all the phone number fields that outlook has?

Specifically the "Other" and "Other fax" fields are missing in a pocket outlook contact. This means that the phone numbers for many of my contacts (over 200) do not appear on my new smartphone. Is there any workaround for this or do I have to manually move 200 odd numbers from the "Other" field into an alternative such as "Home 2" which is synchronised.

Answer:

We decided to omit some less frequently used fields from the desktop Outlook to reduce number of fields showing on the Contact Edit Card on device. We felt that the Edit Card would be difficult to use if we have too many fields on it. I am sorry that this is affecting you. As you pointed out, you would need to move the Other / Other Fax to the fields that we support synchronization.

Regards,

Joe Chiu
SDET, Outlook Mobile

QnA: Can I sync my device with Outlook 2003?

zhamid — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 07:31:00 GMT

Question:

I am told that I can NOT sync my Treo 650 (unlocked) to my Outlook 2003. I work from home on my laptop. I do not connect to any company server. I have internet DSL connection through my ISP provider which is also my email provider. With that type of set up is it possible to sync email from my phone to my laptop and vice versa? I am not techically savvy and just want to be able to use the sync capability with my outlook account.

Answer:

Palm Treo 650 runs Palm OS. It has absolutely nothing to do with us. I have never used that device and no idea how Palm software works.

If you had a Treo 700w then you could do desktop sync. Basically your Palm would have come with a companion CD that contains active sync. You can also download it from the Microsoft website. Once installed, you will be able to connect your Palm Treo to the computer using the provided USB cable and it will sync with your Outlook 2003 (it syncs emails, tasks, contacts and calendar items). In fact, it can also sync IE favorites, files and music.

Thanks.

Zeeshan Hamid.

QnA: How many accounts can I have?

zhamid — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 22:01:00 GMT

Question:

I'm using an Imate Jasjar device bearing outlook mobile,, and my question is very simple:

I find that it is not possible to me to create more than 5 email accounts in this device.

Is there a limitation for account-creation, or am I doing something wrong?

Answer:

Due to some database limitation, number of e-mail accounts is restricted to 8. Most devices ship with 2-3 accounts preconfigured (Outlook, text messages etc). This means you can only have 5-6 additional accounts.

Some T-Mobile phones actually ship with 4 pre-created accounts, the fourth being a TZones email account, so they'll only allow 4 more accounts.

Zeeshan Hamid.

QnA: Dude, what's wrong with IMAP???

zhamid — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 21:52:00 GMT

Since a vast majority of questions we get are IMAP related, let me just come out and say it. We have an issue with IMAP :(

Basically we do not fully support IMAP namespaces. According to Wes Salmon, our awesome SDET in Messaging, some servers use delimiters that we do not recognize, but would if we fully supported namespaces. This causes some issues with not being able to sync some folders (eg. Sent items).

I know this isn't what you wanted to hear, but I guess we messed up!

Zeeshan Hamid.