View "CC Prioritized by Category" gone after 5.02 Rollback

[mglacey]

I installed 5.02 and spent about six hours trying to relearn it before I decided my time is better spent using 4.6.6 which works. I'll avoid the rant about the garbage that is 5.02 and focus on the post. I uninstalled 5.02 and got 4.6.6 working but the view 'ClearContext Prioritized by Category' is not functional. It just does a sort by date, not by priority.

The view I am used to is having emails sorted by importance of user priority - very high, high, etc - but that is now gone with the rollback.

1 - is anyone else experiencing this issue?
2 - is there a fix?

This has been my first bad experience with CC and Brad and co have been wonderful over the years, but this is the most painful software experience I've had in years. I'm holding off on a long blog post as to why 5.02 and the overall rollback process sucks in hopes of getting my issues solved.

Help guys?

Mitch (overly frustrated at the time of writing)

[ClearContext Support]

Mitch:

The ClearContext Prioritized by Category view was introduced in v5, not v4. The v4 views can all be selected from the ClearContext > Inbox Views menu when running v4. Based on your description, I believe you are looking for the ClearContext Prioritized by Day or Week view. If you're having trouble with one of those views, try resetting from that menu. If you continue to have issues, send me an email via ClearContext > About > Email Support.

Thanks.

[mglacey]

I beg to differ. I have version 4.6.6 installed and under the view menu, I have an option that is "ClearContext Prioritized by Category". This has been around for the last three to four years. I've been using it since mid 2005 and it is now gone in 5.02 and it is not working properly in 4.6.6.

Here is what the inbox looks like with that setting. It used to sort by the importance of the contacts, so anyone with a high priority in the contact field would show at the top in red. Now my high pri contacts show up by date. However, they do work as expected if I do a view by CC prioritized by day grouped or CC prioritized by week grouped.

[ClearContext Support]

Mitch:

I am sorry for the confusion. I'm going to give more detail than probably want below, but i want to be clear about what I believe happened. At the end I have a fix for you.

You've been a long time customer and I suspect you are looking for a legacy view called ClearContext Prioritized that was in the v3 product. This view sorted the Inbox by priority only, placing all the High Priority messages at the top, Low priority messages at the bottom and everything else in between without date grouping. It is exactly the same as ClearContext Prioritized by Day and ClearContext Prioritized by Week except that it didn't have date ordering.

We stopped shipping ClearContext Prioritized in v4, but because the view wasn't broken by the upgrade, our upgrade process didn't remove it from the Outlook mail files where views are stored. That means that customers who had previously installed v3 would still see the view in the Outlook view menu after upgrading to v4, but it was no longer maintained in the ClearContext Inbox Views menu.

v5 no longer makes use of the prioritized fields that v5 used, so it was imperative that we remove the old v4 views and replace them with the new v5 views. The v5 upgrade process removed any legacy ClearContext view that relied on the old prioritization scheme. In addition to the v4 views were were shipping, we also removed old v3 views. Again, we had to remove these views because they just weren't going to function with v5. Net net, after upgrading to v5, you should only see three views: ClearContext Prioritized by Category, ClearContext by Date and ClearContext Threaded.

The uninstall process doesn't remove views from Outlook because we don't want to assume that the user doesn't need them. When you reinstalled ClearContext v4, it put views that we ship with v4 back in:

• ClearContext Prioritized by Day
• ClearContext Prioritized by Week
• ClearContext by Date
• ClearContext Threaded

However, because the v5 ClearContext Prioritized by Category view didn't have a counterpart with the same name in v4 and it wasn't removed in the downgrade, it still appears in your Outlook view menu. You should delete this view because it's not going to work in v5.

To restore the old ClearContext Prioritized view from v3:

1. Go to View > Current View > Define Views
2. Copy the ClearContext Prioritized by Day view
3. Rename it ClearContext Prioritized
4. Modify the view
5. Click Group By
6. Set Group By to (none)
7. Exit and apply the view

I expect this to restore the view that you are looking for. Please let me know if I can provide additional detail.

[mglacey]

I can see how this might be the case, but doesnt it assume that I have used the same workstation and client since version 3, or that I first installed version 3 and then upgraded to version 4?

The clients that are exhibiting this problem are both fresh installs of Windows 7, office and then CC 4.6.6 with an upgrade to 5.02. The screen shots above are installed by 4.6.6.

Does your theory still apply even though version 3 was never installed?

[ClearContext Support]

Views are stored in the Outlook mail file, not on the PC. Assuming you have been using the same Exchange account since v3, the view would have been carried over from PC to PC as you replicated your mail file.

[mglacey]

Well then the theory is out.
V3: Microsoft and Ascentium
V4: Ascentium and personal
V5: Personal

Each has its own exchange server and mailbox.

Does a "complete uninstall" remove the preferences in the mail file associated with the exchange server?

[ClearContext Support]

Mitch:

Did the view re-creation instructions above restore the view you were looking for? If so, are you back up and running as you expected? If not, let me know what you need to get back to v4.6.

If you imported or moved parts of your mail file from account to account, the views were likely copied as well. Also, I may have my version numbers wrong - we may have dropped the ClearContext Prioritized view in v4.5 rather than v4.0. Here's the list of views that should be installed in v4.6.6:

http://www.clearcontext.com/views.html

FYI - a complete uninstall doesn't touch data stored in the mail file, only information stored on the PC.

Please let me know what additional assistance I can provide.

[mglacey]

The instructions did not fix the issue. Now I have my mail sorted by date with high priority contact in red, High in blue, medium in green - but it is all sorted by date.

I'm just going to uninstall and find another solution which will either just be changing the way I work to adjust to version 5 or drop CC all together. While the net result may be a good one of continuing to use CC, the investment of 10 hours between yesterday and today is just not worth the frustration.

[ClearContext Support]

Mitch:

It sounds like the sorting was broken on the view you used to build the Prioritized View. I'm certain with another five minutes we can fix that:

1. Select ClearContext > Options > Restore Original
2. Exit Options
3. Select ClearContext > Inbox Views > Prioritized by Day
4. Go to View > Current View > Define Views
5. Copy the ClearContext Prioritized by Day view
6. Rename it ClearContext Prioritized
7. Modify the view
8. Click Group By
9. Set Group By to (none)
10. Exit and apply the view

If that still doesn't look right, open the view you just created via View > Current View > Customize, click Sort. In the bottom drop down, select ClearContext, then sort by CC-ThreadScore:

sorting.png (39.42 KiB) Viewed 1214 times

[mglacey]

This got it most of the way there. This is what I set it to


Topics are back and the view is correct. If this view is going to be in 5.0, I'll be a happy user. It appears that it will not be. Further, having the Topic removed is a deal breaker for me. If these features are going to be integrated in future releases, I'll keep using it. If not, well, that sucks.

[ClearContext Support]

I'm pleased to hear that you are back up and running. You wrote:

having the Topic removed is a deal breaker for me

If you are referring to the Topic field in the Inbox, this is replicated in v5 by synchronizing projects to categories and adding to your category field. If you are referring to the File Topic feature, this is being redesigned for a future v5.x release.

Thanks again for the feedback.