The Outlook 2013 "Search People" box does not function properly. It frequently displays incorrect results or a mess of duplicate results. I've reported previous issues about this and consolidating my posts into one (with screenshots this time). Hopefully this message will be forwarded to or seen by the Outlook programmers. It really needs to be fixed.
Outlook 2010 and other prior versions worked perfectly. You search for name, you get ONE result with the info you're looking for. FAST AND EASY. But with Outlook 2013 Microsoft has created a heck of a mess resulting in huge frustration and productivity loss with such simple but important tasks.
I have hundreds of contacts stored in my Outlook address book, and they all have COMPLETE contact info added.
One major issue that I'm experiencing in the new Outlook 2013 is that I now get average of 4 or more duplicate name results appearing for the same contact. And each result contains different and incomplete contact info, making it impossible for me to quickly find the basic info I'm looking for. The cause of this issue is that Outlook 2013 now provides results from not only your local address book(s), but it also shows results based on your email history and social media accounts setup.And there's no way to turn this off, or at least specify what folders and/or accounts the People Search box should use.
To make matters worse, the Microsoft developers conveniently forgot to add some form of an indicator (like a small icon besides each name result in the list) that clearly indicates what result is from what source. So you must manually click on each result one at a time and repeat the search until you locate the correct one.
For one specific example, I have a contact stored in my local address book calledInfusionsoft. When I type "Infusionsoft" in the People Search box to quickly find a phone number, Outlook 2013 shows me 7 results with the same name. See the screenshot below:
As you can see in the screenshot above, every result just says "Infusionsoft", so I have to manually click on each name result one at a time and repeat the process until I find the correct one from my address book. This same thing happens with other random contacts.
From what I can tell, Outlook is pulling results based on based on recent emails I've received from different people with "@infusionsoft.com" in their email address. So the first result shows "john@infusionsoft.com" (just the email address), the second result shows "jane@infusionsoft.com", the third result shows "support@infusionsoft.com" and so forth. I don't want Outlook to show all of that. I just want what's in my address book!
And you would think that the last result would be the correct one from my address book, but no. Sometimes its the 5th result, and other times it's the 3rd or 7th result. So there's no freaking order of things here.
We simply need the ability to turn off searching of email history and other accounts when using the People Search box. Problem fixed.
(And please don't tell me that I need to "link" every incorrect result to one main contact. You shouldn't expect everyone to have to tediously link any and all results that appear to a record. ESPECIALLY when 5+ results for each contact appear regularly.)
ISSUE 2: Some names must be typed in a different way for the Search People to locate them
Another big issue I'm having with the Search People box is that some name searches don’t show the correct result, unless I search for their names in a different way.
For one specific example, I have a contact stored in my address book named "Dave Johnson". When I type "Dave Johnson" in the Search People box, one result appears, but it's just his email address, only. It's not the result that's stored in my Outlook address book with his phone number, addresses, etc. Screen shot below:
If I type in Dave's name reverse order (Johnson Dave), no results are found at all.Now if I just type in just"Johnson" all by itself, it finds Dave's correct result (the one stored in my Outlook Address Book). Along with everybody else that has "Johnson" in their name (see screenshot below)...
I double-checked how I have Dave's name programed in my address book, and it's in there as "Dave Johnson" for both the Full Name and File As fields.
Also, the name order shouldn't make any difference when using the People Search Box anyway. Sometimes I can find people by Last Name, First Name or First Name, Last Name. Only with random contacts does it get difficult finding their info and I have to do strange things like this to find them from the People Search box.
ISSUE 3: Some Search People results only yield an email address only.
For other random contacts, some search results only yield an email address with no other contact details. But I can open the persons contact card from the address book manually, with the same email address shown! Screenshot below...
In the screenshot above, I have outlined the Search People box results in red, and the Address Book results in green. You can clearly see that "Robert White" is a contact stored in my local address book with full contact details, but the Search People result only shows his email address! Again, it's not consitent. It's hit or miss with different people.
ISSUE 4: Some results just don't appear at all, but they are in the address book
Another issue I'm experiencing with the People Search Box is that some people simply cannot be found. But I can see their contact info just fine if I click on the "People" tab down at the bottom of the page and type in their name in the "Search Contacts" field. Why can't the People Search box find certain people? I opened up their contact details and cannot find a single thing that would prevent them from showing up in results.
These are clearly serious bugs that need to be fixed. And I'm shocked as to how this got missed--or ignored during alpha and beta testing. I see the "idea" behind the developers having the Search People box search everything outside of the address book, but in real world application this causes a heck of a lot of problems & confusion, and it needs to be fixed ASAP.
For technical details, I have Outlook 2013 running on two computers using hosted Exchange 2010. One system is Windows 7 and other is Windows 8. The same problems occur on BOTH computers. As far as my Outlook account setup, I have all contacts stored in the main address book (no sub-folders or other folders).
Can someone help communicate this message to the Outlook developers??? The "Frown" button limits me to 100 characters and one image. There's no way I can communicate this level of detail and steps to duplicate in 100 characters!