Phones and electronic addresses are assigned types for identification purposes. In the case of phone types, the type identifies the device or person to which the phone number is assigned - for example, users use phone types to distinguish between “normal” phone numbers and fax or pager numbers. Electronic address types serve a similar purpose - for example, they distinguish between an email address and a web site address.
Phone and electronic address types appear in the Windows Client as icons (,
,
). They typically appear in the Web Client as text.
This section covers the following topics:
- Phone and E-Address Types Provided by InterAction
- Change the Name of a Phone or Electronic Address Type
- Why is it a Bad Idea to Change the Meaning of the Phone and Electronic Address Types?
- Defining the Sort Order for Phones and E-Address Types
Phone and E-Address Types Provided by InterAction
InterAction includes several default phone and electronic address types. Note that you cannot add new types, although you can change the names of the existing types.
Default Phone Types
InterAction comes with the following default phone types:
| ID | Weighted Order | Default Name |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 100 | Phone |
| 6 | 95 | Mobile |
| 3 | 90 | Pager |
| 7 | 85 | Assistant |
| 2 | 75 | Fax |
| 5 | 65 | Other |
| 4 | 60 | Computer |
As discussed in Why is it a Bad Idea to Change the Meaning of the Phone and Electronic Address Types?, you can change the name of the type, but do not change the overall meaning for the type.
Default Electronic Address Types
InterAction comes with the following default e-address types:
| ID | Weighted Order | Default Name |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 80 | |
| 2 | 70 | Web Site |
| 3 | 55 | FTP Site |
| 4 | 50 | Other |
Change the Name of a Phone or Electronic Address Type
- Log on to InterAction Administrator.
- From the main window entity list, double-click either Phone Type or Electronic Address Type.
- Select the type to edit from the list and choose Edit.
- Edit the Name as needed.
- Choose OK. When you are done editing types, choose the Close button.
Why is it a Bad Idea to Change the Meaning of the Phone and Electronic Address Types?
Phone and Electronic Address types use a fixed set of values in which the Type ID and “purpose” (i.e., meaning or definition) of the type cannot be changed.
When editing the names for types, you can edit the name that the user sees, but changing the meaning of the type associated with a particular Type ID could lead to incorrect processing. For example, you should not change ‘Phone’ to be ‘Fax.’ Because icons are used in the Windows Client for each type, it would be extremely confusing for users if the “Phone” type was changed to “Fax,” yet a phone icon still appears for items that use that type.
The general rule to remember is to edit the name as needed, but never change the purpose of a type. For example, you can change ‘Mobile’ to ‘Cell’ because these two have very similar meanings.
Finally, it is generally not a good idea to significantly change types once InterAction has been rolled out. Once users are accustomed to using particular types when creating and editing data, sudden changes may require retraining and more support.
Defining the Sort Order for Phones and E-Address Types
The weighted order defines the order when a user sorts the contact items by type in the Summary pane and Phones and Addresses view in the Windows Client. You can define a “custom” order by defining a number between one and 100 for each phone and electronic address type.
Higher numbers are considered more important. This allows you to define a more logical order - for instance, it makes more sense for regular phones to appear before fax and pager numbers.
[A] Sorting by phone/electronic address type
To set the sort order for phones and e-addresses:
- Log on to InterAction Administrator.
- From the main window entity list, double-click either Phone Type or Electronic Address Type.
- Select the type to edit from the list and choose Edit.
- Edit the Weighted Order field as needed. You can enter a number between 1 and 100.
- Choose OK. When you are done editing types, choose the Close button.