Formatting your phone book to work with facebook sync - Windows Mobile Apps and Games

In the spirit of xmas, i figured i'd try & contribute something to the community
I just upgraded to the new Energyrom with sense 2.5, and noticed that it will search your facebook for people that match contacts, and give you the option to sync certain info with your phone, ie, pictures.
Problem is, if you're anything like me, your contacts aren't exactly in WinMo-friendly format. Specifically, it'll only sync contacts where the first & last name are in separate fields. Having just imported my contacts from an old phone via sim card to my raphael, this was not the case.
Anyway, here's how to fix it (note that if you do this, it will overwrite any photos you may have on contacts with their facebook photos. The solution to this is to, when your phone asks if you want to link facebook profiles with contacts, deselect the names of people whose pictures you'd like to keep.
Step 1: Sync your contacts with outlook, then go to Contacts in outlook
Step 2: In outlook, go to file->import/export
Step 3: Click Export to a File and click next
Step 4: Click Microsoft Excel 97-2003, click next
Step 5: click contacts, click next
Step 6:Select a destination file and click next until that process is finished
Now open Excel
Step 1: highlight the column with your full names
Step 2: Click the Data tab, click Text to Clumns
Step 3: Click next
Step 4: Deselect all delimiters except Space
Step 5: Click next until finished
This will split off all of your last names into the next column. Do any necessary tidying up by hand until you have two clear columns with first/last name. This might be a good time to remove duplicates, the function right next to the Text to Columns function in the data tab.
Save your excel file.
Now back to Outlook
Step 1: Go to contacts, delete all of your contacts
Step 2: File -> import/export
Step 3: Import from another program or file, click next
Step 4: select Microsoft Excel 97-2003
Step 5: make sure "File to Import" is the file you just finished
Step 6: Your call on duplicates, shouldn't matter. Click through until finished
Okay, now just resynch with your phone.
If your having the problem of all your contacts filed as Last, First, follow these steps:
(note: i didn't write this code, but i forgot at what site i found it, so i'm not giving credit where it's due... if you're curious, just google it)
Step 1: Press alt+f11
Step 2: In projects window, go to ThisOutlookSession
Step 3: Paste the code below
Step 4: Uncomment the strFileAs line that you want to format your contacts as
Step 5: close VB editor
Step 6: Go to tools -> macros -> macros
Step 7: Run your new macro. voila.
Code:
Public Sub ChangeFileAs()
Dim objOL As Outlook.Application
Dim objNS As Outlook.NameSpace
Dim objContact As Outlook.ContactItem
Dim objItems As Outlook.Items
Dim objContactsFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder
Dim obj As Object
Dim strFirstName As String
Dim strLastName As String
Dim strFileAs As String
On Error Resume Next
Set objOL = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
Set objNS = objOL.GetNamespace("MAPI")
Set objContactsFolder = objNS.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderContacts)
Set objItems = objContactsFolder.Items
For Each obj In objItems
'Test for contact and not distribution list
If obj.Class = olContact Then
Set objContact = obj
With objContact
' Uncomment the strFileAs line for the desired format
'Lastname, Firstname (Company) format
' strFileAs = .FullNameAndCompany
'Firstname Lastname format
' strFileAs = .FullName
'Lastname, Firstname format
' strFileAs = .LastNameAndFirstName
'Company name only
' strFileAs = .CompanyName
'Companyname (Lastname, Firstname)
' strFileAs = .CompanyAndFullName
.FileAs = strFileAs
.Save
End With
End If
Err.Clear
Next
Set objOL = Nothing
Set objNS = Nothing
Set obj = Nothing
Set objContact = Nothing
Set objItems = Nothing
Set objContactsFolder = Nothing
End Sub

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Great POST and clearly layed out.
After reading this I dicided to do this but then found out how terribly I name my contacts, nick names etc.
After I had sorted out all the contacts with there right name and re-synced my contacts back to my phone (you might want to mention this in your first POST) that you will loose any pictures you had associated with the contacts (other than the facebook ones), but this is ok because they will be replaced by the new facebook ones but there are still some people in this world that dont have a Facebook account (cave dwellers etc (Joking)) that I had photo's attached to that are now gone&I dont have a seperate copy (its ok I did backup before I attempted this so I could get them back if I wanted).
After I have sync back I remebered why I never did this before, thats because if you put the names in the right sections then in your contacts on your phone you get the lastname first e.g instead of 'John Smith' you get 'Smith, John' which is a horrible way to view them.
I will continue to find a solution and let you know here if I find an answer.
Thank you again

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Install and run this on your PPC and it will convert all your contacts to First, Last format.
Shubaroo Contact Changer

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jab1a said:
Great POST and clearly layed out.
(you might want to mention this in your first POST) that you will loose any pictures you had associated with the contacts (other than the facebook ones),
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Added, thanks
jab1a said:
After I have sync back I remebered why I never did this before, thats because if you put the names in the right sections then in your contacts on your phone you get the lastname first e.g instead of 'John Smith' you get 'Smith, John' which is a horrible way to view them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is covered by the last portion of my post. If you can convert all contacts to "file as:" in the first last format, they will sync to your phone that way. How it displays is contingent upon a setting in each contact, not your phone or anything. Running that VB macro will convert each contact to the format you're looking for, let me know if you have a problem!