Unfortunately sync clients don't usually support all of the features found in the native contacts database that Nokia provides under S60 3rd Edition. Surprisingly, Nokia's own OVI service is shockingly limited in this respect.

The first problem we face is that field labels are not synchronized to external clients, even though Nokia allows field labels to be edited. One of the key features of ContactsEx is its extensive use of user-defined labels for all of the fields in a contact. All is not lost however, because ContactsEx goes to great lengths to preserve the labels after a sync has taken place.

It does this by maintaining a parallel database of labels that it can re-apply to the contacts automatically after a sync operation changes them. To do this however, ContactsEx must have a way of indentifying each contact independent of its name (because the name might be modified by the external client). To that end the program uses one of three rarely-used fields that often survive synchronization. You can choose to use one of the following fields:

Push-to-talk
Share View
SIP

Which field you choose depends on which one you are least likely to use. Secondarily, that field must survive a sync, but determining that isn't as difficult a task as it sounds. ContactsEx provides a feature for testing each of the 3 fields to determine which can be used.

Now that ContactsEx can identify a changed contact by its ID, it can proceed to replace the default labels with the custom labels that you chose. It matches fields based on their content, and so edited fields will not get their original labels back.

The next big problem with sync clients is that many of them do not allow two or more phone numbers to have the same type (I.E. Home, Work, Cell, Fax, etc). Nokia allows multiple numbers to be assigned to the same type, which is great for flexibility, but is an issue when syncing is involved. To that end ContactsEx has a setting you can use that enforces the one-number-per-type limitation, thus ensuing you can't accidentally do something that will cause trouble later.

Another issue concerns Text Notes. Nokia allows you to have lots of these things (and indeed ContactsEx will allow the creation of up to 10 Notes per contact). If your sync client has this limitation, then you can employ another setting in ContactsEx to enforce only one-note-per-contact. However, you can still opt to leave this feature turned off and create multiple Notes, even when your sync client doesn't allow it. However, only the top-most Note (as per the order in which you sort your Notes) will be synced to the client. The others will be recovered from the parallel database that was used to re-apply the labels.

Setting up Sync Capabilities

Before performing your first synchronization it is important that you determine what will happen to your contacts in the process. To that end ContactsEx provides a way to create a fully-populated test contact. This contact contains phone numbers of each type (including second numbers of the "Home" and "Work" type), 2 email addresses, all 3 postal addresses, 3 Text Notes, and a full complement of sundry items (birthday, anniversary, spouse, children, job title, company name, and company address). It also creates items which it labels "Contact ID" in the Push-to-talk, Share view, and SIP fields. To create this contact press the Options softkey in the Names Tab, then select the Help option, and from that the Create Test Contact option. This will create a contact named Test ID Contact.

The idea is to now sync this new contact over to your client, make a small change (such as modifying one of the telephone numbers) and syncing it back to your phone. What's left and what's been changed will tell you everything you need to know about the limitations. If you aren't already regularly syncing your contacts, then you should setup synchronization and sync your entire phonebook to the client first. You can do this before or after you've created the test contact.

Once the modified test contact has been synced back to your phone, go into the NATIVE CONTACTS EDITOR and open the details for the test contact. Scroll through the details and look at the phone numbers. If the labels on the phone numbers have reverted to their default strings, then you will need to use the label recovery feature I outlined above. However, if they have retained their initial labels (especially the number you edited in the client) then you don't need to use the label recovery feature. I'll explain that further down the page.

Next, check to see which of the phone numbers survived. Chances are that you'll only have one number per type, and possibly not all of them will still be there. You should have at least one number corresponding to each of the following types: General, Home, Work, Mobile, Fax, Pager, Car, and Video. If any of these types are missing, then avoid using those types in ContactsEx. Also check to see if you have 2 Home numbers, 2 Work numbers, and 2 email addresses. If you do, then your sync client can support multiple numbers of the same type.

If you have determined that you must use the label recovery function of ContactsEx, then look for the Push-to-talk, Share view, and SIP fields. If at least one of them still exists and contains the value 12345 and has REVERTED to its original label (that is, it isn't called Contact ID) then you are free to use that field for the label recovery feature. If all of them are missing (or have been changed in ways contrary to that noted above) then ContactsEx in its present form cannot handle label recovery for you.

Now check for Text Notes. Chances are you'll find only one them, in which case you sync client can only support one note per contact. If all 3 still exist, then your client can support multiple notes.

Finally, check the various sundry items (birthday, anniversary, spouse, children, job title, company name, and company address) to see which ones survived the sync. Avoid using any sundry items that do not successfully sync with your client.

Now you are ready to setup ContactsEx properly. To do so, go to the settings dialog (from the Names Tab, press the Options softkey and choose Settings). Now move to the Sync Tab and you find 3 options there.

The first and most important is ID Field. This option should presently be set to Not Used. When this option is set in this way there are no ID numbers stored in each contact and the label recovery feature is inactive. In order to activate this feature you must choose one of the 3 rarely-used fields outlined above.

Once you've selected the field you want, press SELECT and dismiss the settings dialog. When you do the program will go through all of your contacts and assign an ID to each, using the field you requested. At any time in the future you can change the field used for the ID, or you can turn off the feature by putting it back to Not Used. Whenever you change this setting, the program will go through your contacts make all necessary updates. Also note that it will have changed each contact and so each one will be synced back to your client.

You should now think about which of the two limitations you need to impose to ensure compatibility with your sync client. You made these determinations when you looked at the test contact above. To enable or disable a limitation, return to the same settings as above and make your required changes.

The final step to try out the synchronization feature in real-life. Pick an existing contact, or create one from scratch and sync it over to your client. Make a few changes and then sync it back. Make sure that the labels were correctly recovered on all fields that were not modified with the client. You can also try creating a contact with your client and syncing the new information back to ContactsEx.