parsing contact names - change settings ?

[dirkrenders]

Hi,

We use Sage ACT! Premium 2013 Version 15.0.301.0

How can I change the settings for parsing contact names ?

I want the contact name to be the same as the company name (I can easy do this with edit/copy field) ... but I don't want the names parsed like it does now ...

Can I set the parsing preferences so that the complete contact name goes into "surname" and all the rest is left empty ?

I'm asking this because when scheduling something, it always uses "surname, firstname" in the "schedule with" field, which doesn't make sense when using the company names (e.g. "Lagoon, Blue" instead of "Blue Lagoon") ...

... so can I change the parsing preferences, or change the settings for the "schedule with" field to use the contact name as it is, instead of the split up name that was derived from the parsing, and in backward order ?

I hope this makes sense, if not, tell me how to tackle this issue otherwise ...

I hope someone can help me ... I don't want to go over 8000+ contacts to change the parsing manually, and export/import isn't an option either as there is already too much history and activity stuff in the database to start all over ...

Greetings

Dirk

[Roy_Laudenslager]

No that can't be done.

[pregen]

The export/reimport could work if you can figure out a way to have a unique id set up for each contact.  There are a couple of Addon's out that that do that.  Swiss Army Knife, Exponenciel, etc.  

Then, you would export the contacts, map the company name to the Last Name field and choose MERGE as the option.  I would also have a column on the spreadsheet that was First name set to blank.

As a workaround tho for now, when you click on the dropdown next to Schedule With - you can click on the Company column and it is then sorted by company id - and you said the contact name matched the company name.  You could then find it easilyl  Amounts to one more click.