Can I edit the default setting of Contact Fields?

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pmj
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Can I edit the default setting of Contact Fields?

Post by pmj »

This is prompted by "something" having messed up many of my Contact Fields, possibly when I recently made a first sync with a new phone. So when I fix that (!) I'd like to simplify the fields, ideally by having a simple default for new contacts.

The only place I can find settings for the "scope" of Contact Fields is in the "Add a New Contact" process.
It presents a ?default? set under "Contact" and a full set under "All fields".

If I delete some of these fields:
Q1: does that create a new set of default fields for all future new contacts?
Q2: and, does it delete any fields I removed from all existing contacts?
Q2.1: only if those fields are empty?
Q2.2: what if an existing contact has data in one of those fields?
Q3: if it doesn't delete those fields from existing contacts, how do I remove the fields I don't want from existing contacts (not one-by-one, I hope ...)

Alternatively, if I edit some of the default fields (some fields are duplicated, and the sequence of fields is illogical):
Q4: will those edits be applied to existing contacts?
Q5: if it doesn't apply those edits to existing contacts, how do I tidy-up those fields in existing contacts (not one-by-one, I hope ...)

I'm tempted to export my contact database as a .csv file, edit it in Excel, and import the cleaned-up version. I've done this before, when I moved out of Lotus Organizer, and again when I combined my Thunderbird contacts and my Palm Desktop contacts into EPIM. It's tedious, especially because some contacts have an amount of formatted notes that would likely lose their formatting. But that should allow me to get control over the duplicate and missing fields, etc.
Q6: if I do that, how will the default set of fields be created?
Q7: are the "Related Items" for each contact stored in the contacts database - and thus might be lost - or are they stored / created in some other manner?

Thanks!
Peter
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Re: Can I edit the default setting of Contact Fields?

Post by admin »

q1. If you delete fields, they will be deleted from the whole EPIM database.
q2. Yes.
q2.2. You are going to get a dialog window warning you there's data in it for other contacts.

q4. Yes.

q6. You're going to see the list of fields you imported.
q7. Related items are stored in the database.

Overall, whatever changes you make with the contact fields, they will all be instantly reflected for all the contacts. Hope this clarifies things. Thanks!
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Re: Can I edit the default setting of Contact Fields?

Post by pmj »

Thank you! Very clear.
To expand on Q7 - are those related items stored in, say, another field in the contacts database that would be exported in the .csv under their respective contacts, and if I left them alone, would be "restored" when I imported the cleaned-up .csv back into EPIM?
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Re: Can I edit the default setting of Contact Fields?

Post by admin »

Information about related items will not be stored in a CSV file. If you wish to ensure full compatibility, please either sync with EPIM Cloud or use the EPIM database file format for export/import.
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Re: Can I edit the default setting of Contact Fields?

Post by pmj »

Following-on from the above, I've undertaken a extensive tidy-up and sort-out of contacts, fields, etc, etc.
In particular, I've deleted lots of fields I would never use, after checking that there wasn't any wrongly-saved data in those fields. This reply:
q2.2. You are going to get a dialog window warning you there's data in it for other contacts.
was useful!

But all the deleted fields are re-appearing, apparently re-instating ?all? EPIM's default fields. It's not the end of the world - except that some of them are duplicates, which invites the risk of saving data in the wrong duplicate field. Duplicates include Birthday, Job title, and a couple of address fields.

This may or may not be related. EPIM is using a tremendous amount of CPU, and its power usage is often "Very high". When I'm working in contacts, if CPU usage gets over 15%, it will crash. It seems to be OK with CPU at 25% otherwise (no crashes). My CPU spec is i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40 GHz. I have 16 GB RAM. It's not using a lot of memory.
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Re: Can I edit the default setting of Contact Fields?

Post by admin »

The deleted fields shouldn't re-appear. When does it usually happen? Is there any active synchronization of contacts?
Is that EPIM 11.1 with the high CPU usage?
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Re: Can I edit the default setting of Contact Fields?

Post by pmj »

I haven't pinned it down exactly, but it's pretty quick, and I think within the same session.
Sync is set to occur automatically, so there may have been a sync.
High CPU usage was with 10.##, I installed 11.1 today, high usage continues. Symptoms seem to be identical.
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Re: Can I edit the default setting of Contact Fields?

Post by admin »

So maybe some fields are back after synchronization takes place? If so, we'd need to know the type and direction of such a sync. Will there be high CPU usage on a new database?
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Re: Can I edit the default setting of Contact Fields?

Post by pmj »

Thank you. I'm pretty sure that all fields return, not just some. There are dozens of them!
I can see a few potential tests to run, which I will do, soon ...
We have an unexpected visitor arriving shortly, so I'll be otherwise occupied for the next few days.
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Re: Can I edit the default setting of Contact Fields?

Post by admin »

No problem, please let us know how the tests went. Thanks!
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Re: Can I edit the default setting of Contact Fields?

Post by pmj »

A belated follow-up.
I think the heavy CPU usage may have been related to the size of the DB / the considerable volume of email in it.
I eventually re-created a new DB by a one-way sync from my tablet, and thus it didn't have email. That worked fine, the DB is much smaller, and there's no heavy CPU usage. For now I've decided not to use WPIM for email. I may test that in the future, but not now.
Fairly sure I've solved the extra/recurring fields problem by a thorough clean-up in WPIM, then a purge and one-way sync to APIM with auto-sync turned off until that sync was proven.
What I did discover was that a one-way sync without a preceding purge doesn't erase anything on the phone/tablet, thus creating multiple entries in some categories.
Thank you for your help.
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Re: Can I edit the default setting of Contact Fields?

Post by admin »

Normally mail module and its size shouldn't have any impact on the CPU usage. There are customers with databases well over 5GB and most of the space is taken by mail. Maybe something else was influencing high CPU usage, although we'd of course need to analyze your DB to tell more. I'm pretty sure if you add mail again, there will be no noticeable difference to the current situation when there's no mail.
As for the one-way sync, you need to make sure the "synchronize deletion" feature is enabled in the sync settings.
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