Format of Tel. Numbers in CDOL

Hello,

in CDOL there are addresses and telephone numbers from leaders.
The format of the addresses are quite good but the format of telephone numbers is more than weird for Germans.
This might be because of the leading 0 in front, but even without we do have a different formatting of area codes (3-6 numbers) and general telephone numbers (3-10).

Is it possible to either change this behavior that it's automatically correct for every country (which is quite hard) or to disable "auto formating in US style"?

Regards
Bryan Pfannkuchen

I would leave feedback in CDOL with some examples of how it should be formatted. The initial format comes from the clerk as they enter the callings in LCR, but they are reviewed by the CDOL support staff and 'standardized'.

They've left it open over the years because not everyone uses the 10-digit system the US does. I don't mind so much that the field is open, I mind there is no consistency....

xxx-xxx-xxxx
(xxx) xxx-xxx
xxx.xxx.xxx
xxx-xxx
xxx.xxxx
sometimes you see both 7 and 10 digits - It drive me crazy a new clerk is called and that clerk types in phone numbers with their own personal way of doing it.....

AHHHHH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ standardize on something, somewhere....

10 Digit
xxx-xxx-xxxx (simplest, recognized by all computer systems as a phone number and is the least amount of digits to use.

johnshaw wrote:10 Digit
xxx-xxx-xxxx (simplest, recognized by all computer systems as a phone number and is the least amount of digits to use.

That works fine in the US, yes. But you've left out the country code.

Well, as I see it, a good way would be instead of using only one input field to use 2 or 3!

2
<automatic_country_code(dropdown)> <area_code> <telephone_number>
+49 _____ _____________ (having the people choose by themselves, if they want to format it with spaces or not)

3
<country_code> <area_code> <telephone_number>
___ ____ ___________

And the autoformat will only do spaces between these fields.

How does that sound?

Tiganita wrote:And the autoformat will only do spaces between these fields.

How does that sound?

I don't know about spaces. The resulting format needs to be something that smartphones will recognize as a number so it can be dialed by just clicking on it.

Do all countries have area codes?

@russellhltn

It doesn't need to be spaces. Dashes would be fine too, just some separators.

And if countries do not have area codes or leave the 2nd field empty it could be formated as <country_code>-<telephone_number>.

sbradshaw wrote:Do all countries have area codes?

Probably most do by now, but some did not. Some countries have multiple formats, a two-digit area code with a five digit number for some areas, or a three-digit area code with a six- or seven-digit phone number for others.

It's a lot like the old days (really old) when we used to dial a one- or two-digit trunk code to get to the next town and then the four-digit phone number. And then some cities have five-digit phone numbers, some six, some seven, and some ten.

It is amazing to be able to connect at all, and it cries out for a free-form international phone number field.

Even for local calls in the U.S., with standardized area codes in some places you do not dial the code and in others you do for a local call.

lajackson wrote:Even for local calls in the U.S., with standardized area codes in some places you do not dial the code and in others you do for a local call.

It may depend on your phone system, but I don't think there's any harm in using the area code when it's not needed.

russellhltn wrote:

lajackson wrote:Even for local calls in the U.S., with standardized area codes in some places you do not dial the code and in others you do for a local call.

It may depend on your phone system, but I don't think there's any harm in using the area code when it's not needed.

Where I live, the call is not completed or you get a different number. It is hard to remember what life was like with land lines.

With cell phones, you have to feed the beast ten digits, and many folks today do not even know the significance of an area code. When folks move, they often keep their phone number, so you can no longer tell where a member lives by their area code.

I used to think you could tell where they came from, but even that is no longer true if they have moved twice or more often. It is a whole new world.

As lajackson mentioned earlier, some countries have multiple formats. Some also have a varied length of numbers. There are many different rules, and some countries have very unique dialing modes (for example, I remember a few years back the phone guy at my company told me about special phone number formats that are only used in Austria and Germany phone systems). Microsoft Outlook seems to have formatting rules built in for different countries. I presume they make sense to the citizens of that country. You can google articles about phone number formats. I presume the church could add such formats to CDOL and the member directory.

One standard I see used frequently is a "+" in front of the country code. On GSM phones, you seem to be able to put a + in front of the country code and it knows how to dial out wherever you are, rather than trying to figure out the international dialing code for the country you're in. I see that CDOL uses the + in noting country codes, but in other church listings of phone numbers, I see the country code listed in parenthesis instead. I'm not sure why the church isn't consistent.

Always returns to the not all countries do it the same..... Doesn't matter, when the phone number pattern is the same, standardize, regardless of whether your in the States, or Europe, Africa or Asia..... Frankly, it's the non us that standardizes we generally are behind in that area.