1 Reply by Darwyn Sumner (LERC)

  • Darwyn Sumner (LERC)
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  • Registered: 07-06-2006
  • Posts: 176

Re: Preferred contact number

The list of contact numbers in the Names and Addresses permits one to select a preferred contact number.
That's only one preferred contact out of the whole range of means of contact.
So if you've got several phone numbers, mobiles, emails & faxes for a person, you can only select one preferred means of contacting that person, not one preferred phone number PLUS one preferred email PLUS one preferred Fax PLUS one preferred Mobile PLUS one preferred Website - just one out of the whole lot!

This is incorrect, it should be one preferred for each Type.

To make this work correctly I am having to hand-edit the Contact_number table

2 Reply by Sarah Shaw

  • Sarah Shaw
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  • Registered: 23-06-2006
  • Posts: 267

Re: Preferred contact number

Hi Darwyn

I'm not sure that this would be considered a 'bug' as such, as looking through the system design, the preferred column within the Contact Number table is described as - "a flag indicating the preferred number for contacting each name (name key which refers to an individual or organisation).  This flag is only set for a single number for each unique name."

Apologies for sounding like a broken record :) - I could add this to my list of suggested improvement to the software.

Many thanks,

Sarah

Sarah Shaw
Biodiversity Information Assistant
JNCC

Sarah Shaw
Biodiversity Information Assistant
JNCC

3 Reply by Darwyn Sumner (LERC)

  • Darwyn Sumner (LERC)
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  • Registered: 07-06-2006
  • Posts: 176

Re: Preferred contact number

Thanks, Sarah.
No-one would be likely to choose the "best" means of contacting someone from a list of either phone, email, fax or website. You would choose the form of contact which best suited the type of information you wanted to convey.
So if I want to book Stuart Ball for a lecture I ring him up, I'll confirm details by email and if I want to know something about hoverflies I'll visit his website. These things are not mutually exclusive and no preferred method can be tagged in the way that Recorder has it.

P.S. How would you categorise this means of communication in Recorder - is it an email or a website - we only have the two choices.