Contacts and mandatory fields

**kbuck320** · 10-13-2009 08:34 AM

Here's a .. suggestion.

Inside Call History, I've been clicking on phone numbers and adding them to my contacts.

Since I didn't know (or care for) the field "Custom Caller ID" I never filled it in. (My thinking, the caller ID name that was coming up was just fine, and I didn't need a custom one.)

So I've "added" a dozen contacts that way. But I started to think, where can you see these contacts? They were never showing up in any vPanel display.

Why? Because I wasn't filling in the "custom caller ID"!!!! So all those contacts I added weren't being added -- and since I didn't receive an error message, I had no idea.

So .. suggestion: If the user doesn't fill in a mandatory field, TELL THEM.

Plus, oh, it sure would be nice to know what "custom caller id" means, and what "Line type" means, what it does, and if it is mandatory.

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I would say I've been relatively satisfied with Voipo, but the one thing that stops me from recommending it to others is that vPanel is just terrible. While I can look past the fact that it is very basic and dull, the fact that it doesn't have any help menus is just crazy. -- I work in IT, so to an extent, I don't mind .. but for the non-technical, I perceive it to be quite user unfriendly.

Adding some help text for each screen just doesn't seem like a major project. I know the beta features are really super cool and everything, but help screens aren't "optional."

**usa2k** · 10-13-2009 09:21 AM

This may sound redundant to the 1st post. Basically, I am in support of making it easy to build a Contacts Directory from Call History. Just thinking it through.

If VOIPo auto-populated custom caller ID with the CNAM value, but allow it to be further customized by the user, VOIPo makes it easier for the user, and reduces VOIPo's need for more CNAM look-ups.

Since it is a custom CID, it should then be OK. You are not caching CNAM, you are saving the user steps.

Another thought is to have two Contact Lists. Personalized Contacts, and Call History Contacts. Let the user move Call History Contacts to the personalized one as needed. New contacts can auto-fill the Call History Contacts. VOIPo can ignore Call History Contacts name info if they feel it violates CNAM agreements, but use it if moved by the user into the Personalized Contacts list.

**mikeb** · 10-13-2009 09:21 AM

I agree with kbuck320's comments. I'm a new customer and I was confused when trying to create contacts. I didn't understand the correct use of the 'Phone Description' field. The 'Create Location' button was also confusing. After adding a few contacts I now understand how to use these fields, but the vPanel pages definitely need some instructions.

**caseydoug** · 10-13-2009 11:58 AM

As I recall, adding to the Contacts list from the Call History doesn't work properly anyway. If you receive a call from an existing contact who is using a new "Location," the tool will not add the Location to the existing contact. Instead, it adds an entirely new contact, which results in duplicates.

What I would really like to see is the ability to import to and export from the Contacts list, using CSV or a similar database format. That way, I could arrange the contacts the way I want, or I could adapt the list from an existing Outlook or Google contacts list.