Multiple contacts from same company

[WPCentral Question]

I've just recently switched from an iPhone 4 to a Nokia 1020, and love it. One thing I've noticed that I would like to fix if possible, is this:

I have all my fellow employees loaded into the People hub. Because they all work for the same company, they have the same work number. We are talking probably 30-40 people. I also created a record for the company, which of course has the same number. When I receive a call from our company phone number, it shows the call as being from a specific employee. I would like it to show as being from the company, not the person it has chosen, as 9 times out of 10, it won't be that person.

Is there a way to tell Windows Phone to use a specific contact record when it gets a call from a specific number? Alternatively, is the logic that it uses to select a contact for that number known?

I am running 8.1.

Cheers,
Tim

 

[Nerdy Woman]

Wow. I'm surprised that a company that large uses a single number + extension arrangement instead of direct-dial access. I used to manage telephony for a company that had direct-dial access but the company's main number was sent for caller ID, but from your description, it sounds like the company only pays for one phone number, not a bank of them.

That said, to my knowledge, there is no way to identify a "primary" contact for a phone number shared by 30-40 users. If your caller ID is confusing you, imagine what it's doing to your pocket computer. It's probably giving you the first record that fits the logic question, "if this record contains this number, display this record." But maybe there is some logic you can apply on your end...

1. When you call a coworker, do you call the office number + an extension or do you call them on their cell? I don't believe having the extension included in the contact record would make any difference because only the first 10 digits are used for caller ID. But if you call a cell number or always enter the extension manually, perhaps the workaround is to eliminate the company number from individual user records.

2. Do coworkers call you from the office phone or do they call your cell number from their own cell phones? If they call from their cell phones, eliminate the company number from their contact record.

I know this isn't what you were hoping to hear, but computers are actually as dumb as toasters. They know 2 things: on and off, true and false, yes and no. You're asking your computer to give one correct answer when you've marked several answers correct.

 

[hotphil]

I have the same issue. Some thoughts I had on things to try that I never got round to testing:
- Mark the Company contact as a favourite
- Insert a space at the start of the number for each person
- Remove the number from each person's contact details
- Have either the Company or person's details stored in international format and the other in local format e.g. +61 8 12345678 for the company and 08 12345678 for the person.

 

[Tim Elley]

Fantastic, changing the phone number for the company contact record to international format fixed the issue for me. I suspect the problem would come back if I changed the other people's records to international format, but I have no need to do that, so all is good.

 

[hotphil]

Yep, that might make sense - I'd guess the network sends the Called ID to the handset in international format and if the software on the handset first checks for an exact match, that's what will come up first.
Won't work for me, as I've got all contact numbers stored in international format.

 

[Tim Elley]

Wow. I'm surprised that a company that large uses a single number + extension arrangement instead of direct-dial access.

Here in New Zealand direct dial is still an expensive luxury unfortunately. We have it for a few people, but not everyone. Definitely would be nice

Fortunately I managed to work around it by altering the company record to be in international format. I suspect it only works because the "+" at the start of the number sorts it to the top in it's query.

Cheers,
Tim

 

[anon(5340442)]

I know this thread is a year old, but I am running into this issue right now. Its not as simple as changing the number as described above - its part of their Linked In profile and I cannot remove or change it. My filter is also set to hide Linked In contacts, so im not sure why its still coming up.