Sync suggests contact info (email) that already exists + My wish list

[jhelle]

Having just given Plaxo another try raises two related issues:

The very first contact (that had supposedly new information that) I checked had
- a new work email (correctly) and
- suggested it had a new home email. Well, it turns out that this 'new' home email was already in the Outlook contact card as Email2.
Not good. LinkedIn Outlook plugin does a nice job in this.

My wishlist
aka. I'd immediately sign up for the Premium service if
- your basic functionality mapping and syncing of contacts would work (Chapura has done a fantastic job in this)
- I'd have a smooth way to choose which changes I approve/reject (including logging of changes preferrably by appending to the end of the contact note field)
Now it wants to show the changes in a web browser page. It's slow, it's inconvenient. Check out LinkedIn Outlook plugin and copy the idea of that. And improve it while you're at it, of course.
... ie. control and transparency
- you'd fully support SyncML
- (and I'd be sure that you really support smooth handling of a few thousand contacts as you advertise, but that's another question).

[bryan]

Thanks for the feedback. A couple of questions:
- You say Plaxo suggested that there was new home e-mail - where did you see this? Was it in an e-mailed Plaxo alert?
- As far as syncing and mapping of contacts, what kind of problems did you run into there? We may be able to address some of these in our next major release
- We are looking into SyncML support for a future release.

Thanks!

[jhelle]

Thanks for the feedback. A couple of questions:
- You say Plaxo suggested that there was new home e-mail - where did you see this? Was it in an e-mailed Plaxo alert?


When I looked at the Modified date of the contacts, then opened one (of a Plaxo user) that was just modiefied after and cliked on the [whatever] button (can't get to it anymore because Plaxo *totally* jams my OL'03 in Win XP Home).
So, after that it takes me to the really inconveniend and clumsy web form (I'f I remember right here) that tells me there is new home email. Which then, in fact, is already in the Email2 field.
... The [whatever] 'button' is te "N.N. has sent you new information - Approve Changes" thingie. (After waiting 4 minutes my OL woke up from the dead .. I'm disabling Plaxo again. Had enough.)

Not very convincing.

And with the OL jamming totally unusable.
I admit: I do have a couple of thousand contacts so you're not even promising that it should be a breeze.

... so while we're at it: What is it in the Premium service that makes handling of large contact lists so much better? Could you please detail, because I have a hard time believing that you'd suplly different toolbar that would run suddenly smoothly when you pay for it and just annoy the hell out of people who don't.

Please not that I'd *really* want to believe that Plaxo would work but I have a hard time believing it before I see it. It would be a nice system if it would work.


- As far as syncing and mapping of contacts, what kind of problems did you run into there? We may be able to address some of these in our next major release


Usability.
When you want to remap a folder you for one don't have the option to remap it to any pst open. And it doesn't show which (local) folders are from which pst.s either. User needs to go see how many entries there are in each of those local folders and hope that it matches what Plaxo shows.
Really not-so-convenient.


- We are looking into SyncML support for a future release.


Great. But you still need to get at least the mapping things right (and that would include making it more transparent).

The great thing (if you do it well) about doing the sync with SyncML is that you don't need to work so much on optimizing the Outlook as you won't need it anymore. SyncML would allow you to by-pass OL in this sense. Updates and stuff can be done online.

[jhelle]

When you want to remap a folder you for one don't have the option to remap it to any pst open. And it doesn't show which (local) folders are from which pst.s either. User needs to go see how many entries there are in each of those local folders and hope that it matches what Plaxo shows.
Really not-so-convenient.


This was to the question: "- As far as syncing and mapping of contacts, what kind of problems did you run into there? We may be able to address some of these in our next major release"

I hope that this issue will be dealt with in the future release. (Along with the other major things.)

As Plaxo still doesn't allow to just disable the add-on but it needs to be uninstalled, which I had forgotten (and which is not very nice) I didn't get rid of Plaxo yet (to wait for those major well-functioning releases).

I'll clarify the problem with the mapping issue. Below is a copy-paste from my folder mgt:

Contacts Folder Contacts xxxx items \\Personal Folders\Contacts
Contacts Folder Contacts yyyy items \\Personal Folders\Contacts

Now, this is not very much of help in knowing which folder is being synced with which folder in Outlook. If the path (\\Personal Folders\Contacts) would include the name of the pst it would help.

But seriously before the release that tells the user this crutial information: How is one to know which folder is which? Which to delete??

ANOTHER issue that I ran across has to do with the Plaxo Sync between OL and Plaxo online.

When a record has been changed in both a Plaxo window pops up titled "Plaxo - Synchronization Conflicts [Contact Name]".
The problem with this window is that it only allows to Accept or keep both records. It doesn't allow rejecting (the Plaxo proposed changes) not to mention that it would allow user to choose which changes s/he wants to accept/reject field by field. Clicking Cancel doesn't seem to help - the prompt pops up again in a while. Does only uninstalling Plaxo help?...

Please check out the free OL duplicate tool Outlook Scrubber from TeamWork. They've done a great job in allowing the user to choose. Would probably be a good benchmark to Plaxo duplicate remover, too.

And finally. As noted earlier it's really frustrating that you don't publish the change log of Plaxo - not even the version number (build). Users can really only guess if you've fixed something or not. Doesn't make one what to give the service too many chances...

Leaves me with pretty mixed feelings.