"Last Name, First Name" display in Contact List - help please

[LeatherMcWhip]

Hi there,

It appears the default display for ACT contacts is "FirstName LastName" (John Smith). However, I prefer inputting my names LastName first (Smith, John). Whenever I import lists of contacts from Excel, the files are added as John Smith ... is there any way to change this at a single go, without going through the list name by name and changing it to my preferred view? Currently, I have to go to each contact's record and change it manually. Seems like it could be easily fixed.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Jackie]

Hi There....Yes, there is, it's called "concatnate"  as  recall.  It's been so long since I've used it, I can't remember the formula...It's a very simple thing to do.  I just looked it up in Excel and there is a Demo available to show you more than you'll ever want to know....(I think...)

[LeatherMcWhip]

Thanks for replying, but it's not exactly what I mean. Everything's fine in Excel. The problem is that in ACT, the Contacts are imported and subsequently displayed as "FirstName LastName" (John Smith) ... when I prefer it the other way. This happens even when I've map the fields appropriately, using "Surname" and "First Name" etc.

I'm wondering if there's a way, when importing contact lists from Excel, for that data to be displayed within the contact record itself as "Smith, John" instead of "John Smith" which seems to be the default display.

[Royel]

In Excel are the first name and last name in separate columns? From you post, I suspect they are and when you import them into ACT! you are map[ing them to the first name and last name fields. If so, then ACT! will combine them in the contact field as first name - last name. If Excel has the contact name in a single column as last name. first name and you map that to the contact field, it should import correctly.

Roy Laudenslager

Techbenders

www.techbenders.com

[LeatherMcWhip]

Thanks! I'll give that a try next time around.

[kharvel13]

Hey there. I am facing a similar issue in that I recently imported an Act! database into my main Act! database. The database I imported had contacts listed by "first name last name", but my main database has contact listed by "last name, first name". Since I am not importing contacts from Excel, I have no idea if there is a way to reorder the names so that all contacts show up as "last name, first name". Any suggestions?

Kevin

[Chris_Lister]

I was wondering the same thing, is there a way to change the default setting for the ordering of the names?