Getting In Touch and Sorting Your Contacts

Each person synced to the People app in your Windows 8.1 machine has a unique set of contact options depending on which social media or email account you have added them in. You will know this when you open the contact detail screen of one of the persons listed on your People app’s contact list which you need to get in touch with.

For instance, if the person you want to contact have a Facebook or a Skype account and you are both friends in both social networks then you will be able to contact him/her using the Facebook chat and as well as the Skype chat. You can also add other contact options such as via phone or send an SMS depending on the information that you manually added to the person’s contact detail. In this tutorial, we will go through the steps that you need to go through in contacting a person on your contact list and see what available options you can use in getting in touch with anyone using the People app.

Accessing the Contact Details Screen

Every contact that is saved in the People app has a detail screen which shows all available contact options and as well as his/her latest status on Facebook or in any of his social media account. To access this section where you can select your most comfortable option of getting in touch with a contact, simply open the People app and get to the “All contacts” section. Once all your contacts appears on the screen, just scroll and find the one that you want to get in touch with and click or tap on his/her account picture or name once you find the person’s account. The contact options are located at the middle part of the account details screen as you can see on the screenshot below.

The account details screen also bears some other options for doing tweaks with the contact. For instance, you can add him/her as “Favorite” by clicking on the “Favorite” button located just below the account picture or link other contacts to the account so you can have easier access to other options for getting in touch with the person. The contact that’ I have show on the screenshot above is only listed in my Facebook account that’s why you only see one option for getting in touch with him which is through Facebook chat. Other details about the person are also available as buttons like the “Map” and as well as the “View profile” buttons located at the middle portion of the account details screen together with the contact options. At the bottom of the contact options section is a link that says “More info”. If you click on it, you will be able to see some additional information about the person like his work, website etc.

Sending a Message to a Contact

Contacts that are saved in only one of the social media account that you have will also have a few options in getting in touch with but for others that are listed as your friends in Facebook, Skype and other social media or email accounts will have more options like the one that you can see on the screenshot below.

To send a message to a selected contact, all you need to do is click or tap on the messaging option that you want to use. If you see an arrow down icon at the right of the option, it means that there are still more choices which you can use in sending a message or making a call. Just click on the arrow down icon to open all the other options available and click or tap on the one which you want to use.

If you clicked on the Skype option, you will see the Skype app open on a small screen at the right-edge of the screen and will take you directly to the section where you can enter the message that you want to send to the contact you selected.

If you clicked on Facebook, the Facebook app will open in a bigger screen than that of Skype and the new message box will automatically show up so you can start entering the message that you want to send to the contact you selected.

Linking Contacts Together

A single contact might have an account in two social networks like Skype and Facebook but there could be cases that when you open the contact’s detail screen, there is only one way, either through Skype or Facebook which you can use to get in touch with the person. This happens especially when the details in the person’s account in Skype and Facebook are different so the People app reads them as two separate people. To link two accounts together, simply click on the “Link contacts” option located below the account picture of the person that you want to link another account with.

After clicking it, you will be taken to the screen that shows a list of the contacts that are already linked with the account. To connect another account with the contact you have selected, simply click on the option that says “Choose an account”  located on the right hand side of the screen. After doing so, you will be taken to a section that shows a list of all the contacts that are synced to the People app. From this list, simply look for the account that you want to link and once you find it, just click or tap on it so it gets selected and hit the “Add” button located at the bottom-right corner of the screen.

Once another contact gets linked to an existing one, you will notice that there will be more options at the middle portion of the screen and sending a message can now be done through Facebook and Skype.

Sorting Your Contacts

The People app also has different rules in sorting the contacts that are synced to it so you can find one easily. If you feel like the current sorting of the contacts is a bit confusing, you can change it simply by getting into the People app’s home page and once you are on it, simply press the Windows + I keys to access the Settings screen. Once the settings screen appears on the right edge of the screen, click on “Options”.

The “Options” section will then open and from here, you can turn on the “Sort my contacts by last name” option. There are also some tick boxes for the social networks which you want to hide contacts from. When you remove the check mark on a social networks tick box, the contacts in it will not appear in the “All contacts” list but they will still appear in the search results. Sorting contacts in alphabetical order of their last name makes it a lot easier for you to look for the people whom you remember the last name of.

That’s all there is to the People app. As you can see, Windows 8.1 has a very smart way of getting all your contacts merged into one app for easier access. Just follow the steps I’ve shown above and you’ll surely be able to use the People app like a boss in no time!