Friday, September 7, 2012

Managing Email and Contacts (vCards) on the iPad


Managing contacts on the iPad can be a little tricky to learn, but once you are set up and understand a few of the basics, it is seamless and a far better experience than you may be used to.

In this post, we are going to review a few of the basic steps and also address getting contact information into your contacts using the electronic vCards.  Once this process is mastered, business cards will seem outdated (although everyone still uses them...).

Setting up Email; Designating Contacts Accounts

Multiple email accounts are simple to setup, and even simpler to manage!
 
Below are my email accounts – of which three are my “main” accounts.



When the accounts were setup, two accounts were indicated as “Contacts” accounts.  This means that my iPad reflects the contents of all contacts included in my main Gmail account and my work Outlook account.
When you have more than one account with contacts, you need to designate a “default” account.  Translated, this means…

“what account do you want me to put new contacts in?”

Once set, the iPad will set all new contacts to sync with that account.  In my case, I chose my Don Gmail (Main) account.

Setting Your Default Contacts Account


To set a default contacts list on the iPad, follow these steps:
1.     Tap Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
2.     Scroll down to the section labeled Contacts.
3.     Tap Default Account.
o    If Default Account does not exist in the Contacts section, then your device has only one contacts list.
4.     Select the account you want to set as the default contacts list for your iPad.
5.     Tap Mail... at the top of the screen to return to the Mail, Contacts, Calendars page.

Sample screen below


Sending Email

It is simple to send email from either any of your email accounts, or when sharing from an application on the iPad.  If you send directly from your email account(s), the “From” address is the account you chose to start the email.  If you initiate an email from another app, the “From” address is your default email account.  However, this is easy to change, as shown below:




Tip:  Many times, depending on whether the information you send is professional or personal, you want the email to come from the proper account.  So, for example, if you are forwarding an article from the web to a colleague/client, you change the “From” address to your work address.

Managing Digital Business Cards (vCards)

Although many professionals use paper business cards, this is almost unnecessary today.  We operate in a digital world, where contact information is received (or capable of being received) seamlessly into our contact management process. 

Although managing this on the iPad is not necessarily intuitive, it is basic, and implementing a few simple steps will enable you to eliminate virtually all of your manual entering (or scanning) of business cards.

Typical sources of digital business cards are through an email or through the web (company website, links to digital business cards, etc.).

A few examples follow:

Email



Link to business card included in email signature:

WebLinks

LinkedIn Connection

        











Company website contacts page


Digital Business Card to iPad Contacts

Now that we can obtain contact information digitally – virtually everyone provides this access – the goal is to create a seamless process for getting the data into your contact management system.

Import vCard Received as Email Attachment

If a vCard is received as an attachment, it is very simple to import into contacts
1.     Tap vCard attachment in email
2.     Tap “Create New Contact” in open contact information screen that appears
See the screenshot below.

Import vCard From a Web Link

This is more of a challenge – although it is a simple two step process to execute, it does require a third-party app (at least that I know of…).  This appears to be a fundamental oversight on Apple’s part.  Although there are at least several approaches to accomplishing this, I found the simplest method to be through the Evernote app.

The steps are simple:

  •   Open vCard in Evernote
  •   Open attachment in Evernote and tap “Create New Contact”
  •   Done


The visual of this process is below.

  • Tap vCard website link

  • Tap "Open in Evernote" button


  • Open vCard in Evernote and tap “Create New Contact



  • "Edit" mode once you tap "Create New Contact" (edit, if necessary, then tap Done)


  • Contact in Address Book











11 comments:

  1. What if you lost all your contacts, messages, notes and photos on your iPad 3? iPad Data Recovery Software help you recover ipad data you lost due to any reason including music,videos,photos,sms messages, contacts and so on on Mac machine.

    Resource from
    http://photorecovery-formac.com/ipad-data-recovery.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. I had a morning home from chapel alone on as well. Mine was mental state associated therefore regardless I feel slight blame anyway this link is totally was excellent to be home alone. Love your

    ReplyDelete
  3. If you want to manage the email and the contacts from the v cards on the I pad then you can get the straight guidelines from this area. Like on this page you can get the signup notification from Thorn hill and the new area of the subscription here.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Managing Email and Contacts (vCards) on the iPad is really good and helpful post.I want you all guys to read about this and share it on some forum for more readers.go here

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well I have no ipad but then still I read this detailed article.Its very much informative and helpful.Kindly share some more exciting stuff.Thank you.
    Website: http://www.sopforms.com/statement-of-purpose-for-master-degree/

    ReplyDelete
  6. Managing Emails is the hectic task for businessman. That site can sort out their problem and can provide different ideas for managing emails. Here we have great blog. Hopefully you'll enjoy your visit.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Email managing and content handling is indeed tough job specially when its in bulk and there is a http://www.summarizemypaper.com/best-service-to-help-me-summarize-any-paper/ which instructs you how to deal with this all.Anyways your post is very informative.

    ReplyDelete
  8. This is actually very good topic about email management on ipad. You have shared great guideline to use the email managing step by step with picture. This technique should useful for email marketing job. Also you should visit page to get our essay or personal statement writing services. Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  9. Follow our portal now to know more about the various Vaughan Wedding Venue options that we have in store for you. Go through the shared information online to realize why our services are so popular. The best wedding halls will always deliver services based on your need.

    ReplyDelete