Working with the Contacts Folder 434
Creating Other Contacts Folders 439
Viewing Contacts 452
Working with Contact Groups 461
Sharing Contacts 464
Using Contacts Effectively 470
THE Contacts folder in Microsoft Outlook 2010 is an electronic tool that can organize and store the thousands of details you need to know to communicate with people, businesses, and organizations. You can use the Contacts folder to store email addresses, street addresses, multiple phone numbers, and any other information that relates to a contact, such as a birthday or an anniversary date.
From a contact entry in your list of contacts, you can click a button or choose a command to have Outlook 2010 address a meeting request, an email message, a letter, or a task request to the contact. If you have a modem, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone, Office Communicator, or other online conferencing application, you can have Outlook 2010 dial the contact’s phone number. You can link any Outlook 2010 item or Microsoft Office 2010 system document to a contact to help you track activities associated with the contact.
Outlook 2010 allows you to customize the view in the Contacts folder to review and print your contact information. You can sort, group, or filter your contacts list to better manage the information or to quickly find entries.
Outlook 2010 integrates well with Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and Microsoft SharePoint Server, both of which provide the means for users to share documents, contacts, messages, and other items through a web-based interface. You can export contacts from Outlook 2010 to a SharePoint site, or vice versa.
Outlook 2010 also supports the use of vCards, the Internet standard for creating and sharing virtual business cards. You can save a contact entry as a vCard and send it in an email message. You can also add a vCard to your email signature.
This chapter discusses contact management in Outlook 2010. The Outlook 2010 Contacts feature provides powerful tools to help you manage, organize, and find important contact information.
The Contacts folder is one of the Outlook 2010 default folders. This folder stores information such as name, physical address, phone number, and email address for each contact. You can use the Contacts folder to address email messages, place phone calls, distribute bulk mailings through mail merge (in Microsoft Word 2010), and perform many other communication tasks quickly. The Contacts folder, however, is not the same as your address book. Your Outlook Address Book (OAB) lets you access the Contacts folder for addressing messages, but the Address Book also lets you access addresses stored in other address lists.
Note
For detailed information about working with address books in Outlook 2010, see Chapter 6.
You can open the Contacts folder either by clicking the Contacts button in the Navigation pane or by opening the Folder List and clicking Contacts. When you open the folder, you’ll see its default view, Business Cards, which displays contact entries as virtual business cards that show name, address, phone number, and a handful of other items for each contact, as shown in Figure 18-1. Outlook 2010 provides several predefined views for the Contacts folder that offer different ways to display and sort the contacts list.
Figure 18-1. Use the Contacts folder to manage contact information such as address, phone number, and fax number for your business associates and friends.
Note
For details about the available views in the Contacts folder and how to work with them, see the section Viewing Contacts, on page 452.
Note
You can use the alphabet index on the right in the folder window to jump quickly to a specific area in the Contacts folder. For example, click LM to jump to the list of contacts whose names begin with L or M.
When you double-click an entry in the Contacts folder, Outlook 2010 opens a contact form similar to the one shown in Figure 18-2. This multitabbed form lets you view and modify a wealth of information about the person. You also can initiate actions related to the contact. For example, you can click the More button in the Communicate group on the Contact tab on the ribbon and then choose Call to dial the contact’s phone number. You’ll learn more about these tasks throughout the remainder of this chapter. The following section explains how to create a contact entry and also introduces the tabs on the ribbon to help you understand the types of information that you can store.
To create a contact entry, you can start from scratch, or you can base the new entry on a similar existing entry—for example, the entry for a contact from the same company.
You can open a contact form and create a new entry in any of the following ways:
Click New Contact on the Home tab on the ribbon with the Contacts folder open.
Right-click a blank area in the Contacts folder (not a contact entry), and then choose New Contact.
With the Contacts folder open, press Ctrl+N.
In any other folder view (such as Messages), click the arrow next to the New Items button on the ribbon, and then choose Contact.
When the contact form opens, type the contact’s name in the Full Name box and enter the information that you want to include for the contact, switching between General and Details views (using the Show button) as needed. To save the entry, click Save & Close. To save this entry and continue to add contacts, click Save And New. To copy the company information to another new contact, click Save And New and then choose Contact From The Same Company.
Filling in the information on the contact form is straightforward. You might find a few of the features especially useful. For example, the File As drop-down list allows you to specify how you want the contact to be listed in the Contacts folder. You can choose to list the contact in either Last Name, First Name format or First Name, Last Name format; to list the contact by company name rather than personal name; or to use a combination of contact name and company name.
You can also store more phone numbers in the contact entry than the four that are displayed on the form. When you click the down arrow next to a phone number entry, as shown in Figure 18-3, you see a list of possible phone numbers from which you can select a number to view or modify; the checked items on the list are those that currently contain information. When you select a number, Outlook 2010 shows it on the form.
Figure 18-3. You can store multiple phone numbers for a contact, but only four appear on the form at one time.
In addition to storing multiple phone numbers for a contact, you also can store multiple physical addresses. Click the down arrow next to the Address button on the form to select a business, home, or other address. (By default, the button is labeled Business.) The E-Mail box can also store multiple addresses; click the down arrow to choose one of three email addresses for the individual. For example, you might list both business and personal addresses for the contact. The Details page of the contact form, shown in Figure 18-4, lets you add other information, such as the contact’s department, office number, birthday, and anniversary. To view Details, click Show on the Contact tab of the ribbon and choose Details. Internet Free/Busy is a feature of Outlook 2010 that allows you to see when others are free or busy so that you can schedule meetings efficiently. Outlook 2010 users have the option to publish their free/busy information to a user-specified Uniform Resource Locator (URL) file server, which you can enter in the Address box.
Figure 18-4. The Details page stores additional information—both business and personal—about the contact.
The Activities page of the contact form is useful for locating email messages, logged phone calls, and other items or activities associated with a specific contact. For information about using the Activities page, see the section Associating a Contact with Other Items and Documents, on page 441.
Tip
INSIDE OUT Add contacts quickly
When you use one of the table views (such as Phone List) to display your Contacts folder, you’ll see a row at the top of the list labeled Click Here To Add A New Contact. This is a handy way to enter a contact’s name and phone number quickly—simply type the information directly in the row, and Outlook 2010 adds the contact entry to the folder.
If you have several contacts who work for the same company, you can use an existing contact entry to create a new entry. Simply select the existing entry in Business Cards or Address Cards view, click New Items, and then choose Contact From Same Company. Outlook 2010 opens a new contact form with all the company information (name, address, and phone numbers) supplied—all you have to do is fill in the personal details for that individual.
Note
You can also use a template to create multiple contact entries that share common data such as company affiliation. For information about working with templates in Outlook 2010, see Chapter 24.
When you receive an email message from someone you’d like to add to your contacts list, you can create a contact entry directly from the message. In the From box of the message form or in the InfoBar in the Reading pane, right-click the name, and then choose Add To Outlook Contacts from the shortcut menu. Outlook 2010 opens a new contact form with the sender’s name and email address already entered. Add any other necessary data for the contact, and then click Save & Close to create the entry.
In some cases, you might want to create a copy of a contact entry. For example, although you can keep both personal and business data in a single entry, you might want to store the data separately. You can save time by copying the existing entry rather than creating a new one from scratch.
To copy a contact entry in the Contacts folder, right-click and drag the entry to an empty spot in the folder, and then choose Copy. Outlook 2010 displays the Duplicate Contact Detected dialog box. Click Add New Contact, and then click Add to create a new entry containing all the same information as the original. You also can copy contact information to another folder. Open the folder where the contact entry is stored, and then locate the destination folder in the Navigation pane or in the Folder List. Right-click and drag the contact entry to the destination folder, and then choose Copy on the shortcut menu.
In addition to providing its default Contacts folder, Outlook 2010 allows you to use multiple contacts folders to organize your contacts easily. For example, you might use a shared contacts folder jointly with members of your workgroup for business contacts and keep your personal contacts in a separate folder; or you might prefer to keep contact information that you use infrequently in a separate folder to reduce the clutter in your main Contacts folder. The process of creating a contact entry in any contacts folder is the same regardless of the folder’s location—whether it is part of your Microsoft Exchange Server account or in a personal folder (.pst) file, for example.
To create a new folder for storing contacts, follow these steps:
Right-click Contacts in the Folder List and choose New Folder to open the Create New Folder dialog box, shown in Figure 18-5.
In the Name box, type a name for the folder. This is the folder name that will be displayed in Outlook 2010 (in the Navigation pane and in the Folder List, for example).
Select Contact Items in the Folder Contains drop-down list.
In the Select Where To Place The Folder list, select the location for the new folder.
Click OK.
When you create a new contacts folder using this method, Outlook 2010 sets up the folder using default properties for permissions, rules, descriptions, forms, and views.
You can do much more with your Outlook 2010 contacts list than just view address and phone information. Outlook 2010 provides a set of tools that make it easy to phone, write, email, or communicate with contacts in other ways. This section explains these tools.
As you work with contacts, it’s useful to have email messages, appointments, tasks, documents, or other items related to the contact at your fingertips. You can relate items to a contact by inserting one Outlook 2010 item in another. For example, if you create a task to call several of your contacts, you can use the Outlook Item button on the Insert tab to insert those contacts in the task. To do this, do the following:
With the task open, click Outlook Item on the Insert tab.
Select the contacts in the resulting Insert Item dialog box, shown in Figure 18-6.
Click OK to insert the item.
Note
For details on setting up tasks, see the section Working with Tasks in the Tasks Folder, on page 537.
Email messages that you send to a contact are associated to that contact and appear on the Activities page of the contact form automatically. On the Contact tab of the ribbon of any contact form, clicking the Activities button in the Show group displays all the items associated with that contact, as shown in Figure 18-7. Outlook 2010 searches for links to items in the main Outlook 2010 folders, including Contacts, email (Inbox and other message folders), Journal, Notes, Tasks, and Calendar.
What good is the Activities page? It’s extremely useful for finding items associated with a specific contact. For example, you could sort the Inbox by sender to locate an email message from a particular person, or you could use the Activities page of his or her contact form to achieve the same result. You could also view a list of the tasks assigned to an individual by checking the Activities page. Although you can view these associations in other folders, the Activities page not only offers an easier way to view the links but also lets you see all linked items, not just specific types of items.
In many cases, you might want to insert one or more documents in a contact. For example, assume that you manage contracts for several individuals or companies. You can insert a contract document into the contact that is covered by the contract to make it easier to open the document from the contact form. With this association, you don’t need to remember the document name if you know the name of the contact with whom it is associated.
Follow these steps to insert a document in a contact:
Open the Contacts folder, open the contact item, and then click the Insert tab.
Click Attach File.
Locate the files that you want to associate with the contact, and then click Insert.
The file now appears in the Notes area of the contact details.
Click the Contact tab, and then click Save & Close to create the link.
When you want to open the document, simply open the contact form and click the link in the Notes section.
In the preceding example, you actually inserted the document in the contact item. An alternative is to insert a hyperlink to the document in the contact item. The advantage to this method is that you are not duplicating the document—it remains in its original location on the disk. When you need to open the document, you can click the hyperlink in the contact item. Alternatively, you can open the document from its location on the disk. Another benefit of linking rather than embedding is that if the source document changes, you’ll see the up-to-date copy when you open it from inside the contact item in Outlook. If you embed the document in the contact item instead, any changes to the original are not reflected in the copy stored in Outlook.
Linking a document in a contact is easy. In step 3 of the preceding procedure, rather than click Insert, click the down arrow next to the Insert button, and then select Insert As Hyperlink.
Occasionally, you’ll want to remove a link between a contact and another item. For example, perhaps you’ve accidentally linked the wrong document to a contact.
To remove a link from a contact to an item, follow these steps:
Open the contact item, and then, on the Contact tab, in the Show group, click General.
In the Note section of the contact form, select the item that you want to delete and press the Delete key.
Note
Although you can remove the contact association in a task, doing so removes the task from the contact’s Activities page only if the task is assigned to someone other than the linked contact. If the contact owns the task, the task continues to be listed on the Activities page even after the task is marked as completed.
A category is a keyword or a phrase that helps you keep track of items so that you can find, sort, filter, or group them easily. Use categories to keep track of different types of items that are related but stored in different folders. For example, you can keep track of all the meetings, contacts, and messages for a specific project when you create a category named after the project and then assign items to it.
Categories also give you a way to keep track of contacts without putting them in separate folders. For example, you can keep business and personal contacts in the same contacts folder and use the Business and Personal categories to sort the two sets of contacts into separate groups.
One quick way to assign categories to a contact is to right-click the contact item, choose Categorize, and then click a category. If the category you want doesn’t appear in the category list, choose All Categories on the shortcut menu. Then, in the Color Categories dialog box, you can select the check boxes next to the categories that you want to assign to the contact. Alternatively, you can open the contact item, click the Categorize button on the contact form, and select a category, or click All Categories to open the Color Categories dialog box. This dialog box is useful not only for assigning categories but also for reviewing the categories that you’ve already assigned to an item.
Note
For more information about how to assign a category to a contact; how to use categories to sort, filter, and group contact items; and how to create your own categories, see Chapter 5.
If you create a contact entry using the same name or email address as an entry that already exists in your Contacts folder, Outlook 2010 displays the Duplicate Contact Detected dialog box, in which you can choose to either add the new contact entry or update your existing entry with the new information, as shown in Figure 18-8.
Figure 18-8. Use the Duplicate Contact Detected dialog box to tell Outlook 2010 how to handle a duplicate contact.
If you select the first option, Outlook 2010 adds the new contact to your Contacts folder, and you’ll now have two entries listed under the same name or email address. In that case, you’ll probably want to add some information to the contact forms—perhaps company affiliation or a middle initial—to distinguish the two entries.
If you select the second option, to update the existing entry with information from the new one, Outlook 2010 compares the fields containing data in both entries and copies the data from the new entry into any fields that have conflicting data. For example, if you have a contact named Chris Ashton whose phone number is 555-5655, and you create a new contact entry for Chris Ashton with a new phone number, Outlook 2010 copies the new number into the existing entry and leaves the other fields the same.
In case you need to revert to the information in the original contact entry, a copy of the original entry is stored in your Deleted Items folder whenever Outlook 2010 copies new data.
If you have a modem, VoIP phone, or voice conferencing software (such as Office Communicator), you can use Outlook 2010 to dial any phone number that you specify, including phone numbers for contacts in your contacts list.
To make a phone call to a contact using Outlook 2010, follow these steps:
Click a contact item, click More in the Communicate group on the Home tab, choose Call, and then choose a number to open the New Call dialog box with the contact’s phone number already entered, as shown in Figure 18-9. If the contact form is open, in the Communicate group of the ribbon, click the More button and then choose Call.
If you want Outlook 2010 to use a phone number associated with a different contact, type the contact’s name in the Contact box, and then press Tab or click in the Number box. Alternatively, you can simply type the phone number in the Number box.
If the contact entry for the person you’re calling already includes phone numbers, select the phone number in the Number box. If the contact entry doesn’t specify a phone number, type the number in the Number box.
To keep a record of the call in the journal, select the Create New Journal Entry When Starting New Call check box. If you select this check box, a journal entry opens with the timer running after you start the call. You can type notes in the text box of the journal entry while you talk.
Click Start Call.
Pick up the phone handset, and click Talk to begin the call.
If you created a journal entry for the call, click Pause Timer to stop the clock when you’ve finished the call, and then click Save & Close.
Click End Call, and then hang up the phone.
Tip
INSIDE OUT Keep track of phone calls
If you want to time a call and type notes in Outlook 2010 while you talk, you can create a journal entry for the call as you dial. The journal entry form contains a timer that you can start and stop and also provides space to type notes. For example, you might want to use this option if you bill clients for time spent on phone conversations. For more information about using the journal for phone calls, see Chapter 22.
Note
If you omit the country code and area code from a phone number, the automatic phone dialer uses settings from the Dialing Properties dialog box, which you can access through the Phone And Modem Options icon in the Control Panel or by clicking Dialing Properties in the New Call dialog box. If you include letters in the phone number, the automatic phone dialer does not recognize them.
If you’re working in the Contacts folder, you can send an email message to one of your contacts without switching to the Inbox folder. This is a handy feature that can save a lot of time in an average workday.
Here’s how to send a message from the Contacts folder:
In the Contacts folder, select the contact item, and then click E-mail in the Communicate group on the Home tab. Alternatively, right-click the contact, click Create, and then click E-mail.
In the Subject box, type the subject of the message.
In the message body, type the message.
Click Send.
It seems everyone has a website these days, whether it’s a company’s site or a collection of family photos. If you have the URL for a contact’s web page recorded in the contact entry, you can connect to that site directly from Outlook 2010. This is particularly handy for linking to business sites from a company contact entry—for example, you might create a link to the company’s support or sales page. Associating websites with contacts is often more meaningful than simply storing a URL in your Favorites folder.
With the contact item open, you can connect to the contact’s website by clicking the URL in the Web Page Address field.
Many Outlook 2010 users believe that the Calendar folder is the only place you can schedule a new appointment or meeting easily, but that’s not the case. You can schedule an appointment or a meeting in any Outlook 2010 folder. The Contacts folder, however, is a logical place to create new appointments and meetings because those events are often associated with one or more contacts stored in the Contacts folder.
Meetings differ from appointments in that they are collaborative efforts that involve the schedules of all the attendees. When you set up a meeting, Outlook 2010 creates and sends meeting requests to the individuals you want to invite. You can create meeting requests for any number of contacts through the Contacts folder, saving the time of switching folders.
To send a meeting request to one or more of your contacts from the Contacts folder, follow these steps:
Open the Contacts folder, and then select the contact entries for those people you want to invite to the meeting. (To select multiple entries, hold down the Ctrl key and click the entries.)
Click Meeting in the Communicate group of the Home tab on the ribbon.
In the Subject box, type a description of the proposed meeting.
In the Location box, type the location.
Enter the proposed start and end times for the meeting.
Select any other options that you want.
Click Send.
Note
For details about setting up meetings and sending meeting requests, see Chapter 20.
The Tasks folder in Outlook 2010 offers a handy way to keep track of your work and the work that you delegate to others. For example, if you manage a group of people, you probably use the Tasks folder to assign tasks to the people who work for you. However, if you need to assign a job to one of your contacts, you can do this directly from the Contacts folder. Doing so adds the contact’s name to the Contacts box in the task request.
Follow these steps to assign a task to a contact:
In the Contacts folder, select the contact, click More in the Communicate group on the Home tab of the ribbon, and choose Assign Task.
Outlook 2010 opens a new task form with the contact’s email address added in the To field. Enter other information as needed, such as start and stop dates for the task.
Click Send to send the task request.
You can flag a contact item for follow-up to have Outlook 2010 remind you to call or email the contact. For example, suppose that you want to make a note to yourself to call a colleague at 10:00 A.M. tomorrow to ask about the status of a project. You could create a note in the Notes folder, create a task, or add an appointment to your schedule, but an easy way to create the reminder is to add a follow-up flag to the contact entry in the Contacts folder. Outlook 2010 adds the follow-up flag as text to the Card view, but there is no other visual indicator that contacts are flagged. However, you can click the To-Do Bar and see the contacts’ names in the Task List with a follow-up flag, as shown in Figure 18-10.
If you specify a particular date and time for follow-up when you add the flag, Outlook 2010 generates a reminder at the appointed time. Adding a reminder helps ensure that you don’t forget to follow up with the contact at the appropriate time.
Follow these steps to flag a contact for follow-up:
In the Contacts folder, select the contact that you want to flag, and then in the Tags group on the Home tab on the ribbon, and click Follow Up. Alternatively, right-click the contact, and then choose Follow Up.
If one of the default follow-up time options suits you, click it. If not, click Custom to open the Custom dialog box.
In the Flag To box of the Custom dialog box, shown in Figure 18-11, select the flag text that you want Outlook 2010 to use or type your own flag text.
Select a start date in the Start Date drop-down list, and then select a due date in the Due Date drop-down list.
If you want a reminder, click the Reminder option, select a date, and then specify a time.
Click OK. Outlook 2010 adds the flag text to the contact item and adds an entry to your task list.
When you have completed your follow-up action, you can remove the flag from the contact item (clear the flag) or mark the follow-up as completed. If you clear the flag, Outlook 2010 removes it from the contact item and the task list. If you prefer to have the flag remain, you can mark the follow-up as completed. In this case, the follow-up text remains, but the contact form includes a message indicating that the follow-up was accomplished (and the date). When you flag a contact as complete, the item disappears from the Task List.
Use one of the following methods to mark a follow-up flag as completed:
Select the flagged contact item, click Follow Up on the Home tab, and then click Mark Complete.
Right-click the contact item, click Follow Up, and then click Mark Complete.
Use one of the following methods to clear a flag, which removes it from the contact item:
If you store only a small list of contacts, finding a particular contact is usually not a problem. As the number of contacts grows, however, it becomes more and more difficult to locate information, especially if you aren’t sure about a name. For example, you might remember that a person works for a certain company but can’t recall the person’s name. Outlook 2010 provides features to help you quickly and easily locate contact information.
Perhaps the easiest method of locating a contact, if you know the name, is to type the name in the Search Contacts box and then press Enter. Outlook 2010 locates the contact and filters the view to display it. If more than one contact matches the data you’ve entered, Outlook 2010 displays all of them, as shown in Figure 18-12.
The options on the Search tab can help you refine your search. For example, you can search by email address, phone number, category, and more. Use the Scope group to specify where to search, whether in the current folder, all subfolders, or all of Outlook.
Finally, if you need to perform an advanced search, click Search Tools and choose Advanced Find to open the Advanced Find dialog box, shown in Figure 18-13. You can use this dialog box to perform more complex searches based on multiple conditions, such as searching for both name and company.
Figure 18-13. Use the Advanced Find dialog box to perform more complex searches using multiple conditions.
Note
For a detailed discussion of how to perform both simple and complex searches in Outlook 2010, see Chapter 32.
Outlook 2010 provides predefined views for reviewing your contacts list in the Contacts folder. For example, Card view displays names and addresses of contacts in blocks that look like address labels. This view is a convenient way to look up a contact’s mailing address. In Phone view, Outlook 2010 displays contact entries in table rows with details such as phone, job title, and department name in columns. This view is helpful for quickly finding a contact’s phone number or job title. You can customize the various standard views to control the amount of detail or to help you organize and analyze information.
The Contacts folder offers several standard formats for viewing contacts. To change views, select a view in the Navigation pane or click View, Current View, and then select the view that you want to use. Two of the standard formats are card views, and the rest are table views, as described in the following list:
Business Cards This view shows the contacts in a business card format.
Card This view displays contact entries as individual cards with name, one mailing address, and business and home phone numbers.
Phone This table view displays a list with the contact’s name, the company name, business phone number, business fax number, home phone number, mobile phone number, categories, and a check box to enable or disable journaling for the contact.
List This view displays the items as a general list.
The methods of customizing the view in Outlook 2010 folders are generally the same for all folders. This section examines some specific ways that you might customize the Contacts folder to make it easier to locate and work with contacts. For example, you might use a specific color for contacts who work for a particular company. You can also change the fonts used for the card headings and body, specify card width and height, and automatically format contact entries based on rules.
Note
Chapter 26, covers additional ways to customize views.
You can filter the view in the Contacts folder to show only those contacts that meet the conditions that you specify in the filter. For example, you can use a filter to view only those contacts who work for a particular company or who live in a particular city.
Follow these steps to set up a view filter in the Contacts folder:
Open the Contacts folder, select the view you want to change, and then click View Settings on the View tab.
Click Filter in the Advanced View Settings dialog box.
In the Filter dialog box, specify the conditions for the filter. If you don’t see the items that you need to specify for the condition, use the Field drop-down list on the Advanced tab to select the necessary field.
Click OK to close the Filter dialog box, and then click OK in the Advanced View Settings dialog box to apply the filter.
When you want to view the entire contents of the folder again, you can remove the filter using the procedure detailed here:
Select the view and click View Settings in the View tab on the ribbon.
Click Filter.
In the Filter dialog box, click Clear All, and then click OK.
Click OK to close the Advanced View Settings dialog box.
You can change the font used for card headings and the card body text. You can also change the font style, size, and script, but not the color.
Follow these steps to change the font for card headings and body text:
Display the view that you want to modify and then click View Settings in the View tab on the ribbon.
In the Advanced View Settings dialog box, click Other Settings to display the Format Card View dialog box, shown in Figure 18-14.
Click Font in the Card Headings or Card Fields area of the dialog box to open a standard Font dialog box in which you can select font characteristics.
Make your font selections, and then click OK.
Specify options according to the following list, and then click OK:
Allow In-Cell Editing Selecting this check box allows you to modify contact data by clicking a field in the view without opening the contact form.
Show Empty Fields Select this check box if you want to show all fields for all contacts, even if the fields are empty. Clear this check box to simplify the view of your Contacts folder. Note that when this check box is selected, Outlook 2010 displays all fields defined for the view, not all contact fields.
Card Width Set the card width (in number of characters) using this option.
Multi-Line Field Height Use this option to specify the number of lines that you want to display on the card for multiline fields.
Click OK to close the Advanced View Settings dialog box.
Outlook 2010 performs some limited automatic formatting of data in the Contacts folder. For example, it uses bold for contact group items, regular font for unread contacts, and red for overdue contacts (contact entries with an overdue follow-up flag). You can make changes to these automatic formatting rules, and you can even create your own rules. For example, you might want to display overdue contacts in blue rather than in red, or you might want to use a particular color for all contacts who work for a certain company.
Follow these steps to modify the formatting for an existing rule or to create a new rule:
Open the Contacts folder and display the view that you want to modify, and then click View Settings.
Click Conditional Formatting in the Advanced View Settings dialog box to display the Conditional Formatting dialog box, shown in Figure 18-15.
If you want to modify an existing rule, select the rule, and then click Font to change the font characteristics or click Condition to modify the condition for the rule. If you are changing the condition, skip to step 6. Otherwise, skip to step 7.
Click Add if you want to add a new rule. Outlook 2010 creates a new rule named Untitled.
Type a new name in the Name field, click Font and specify font characteristics, and then click Condition to open the Filter dialog box, shown in Figure 18-16.
Specify the criteria to define the rule condition. For example, click Advanced, click Field, click Frequently Used Fields, and click Company. Then select Contains in the Condition drop-down list and type a company name in the Value box. This will format all contacts from the specified company automatically using the font properties you specify in the next step.
Click OK to close the Filter dialog box, click Font in the Conditional Formatting dialog box, specify the font properties, and then click OK.
Close the Conditional Formatting and Advanced View Settings dialog boxes to view the effects of the new rule.
Categorizing contacts allows you to organize your contacts into groups that you create. For example, categories provide an easy way to distinguish all your personal contacts from business contacts. Categorizing also gives you the ability to group people from different companies who are all involved in the same project. Outlook 2010 provides an easy way for you to categorize your contacts, using color coding to distinguish the categories from each other. You can also define custom labels for categories so that you can identify the category by both color and label.
You can define your categories either by using a color category for the first time or by using the Color Categories dialog box. Outlook 2010 offers a couple of ways to open the Color Categories dialog box:
Note
When you use a color category for the first time, Outlook 2010 displays a Rename Category dialog box that lets you change the text associated with the category.
To create a new category and assign a color to it, follow these steps:
In the Color Categories dialog box, click New.
Type an appropriate name for the category, and then select a color in the drop-down color palette.
Click OK.
Note
For quick category assignment, assign a unique shortcut key to each of the categories that you use most often. You can assign the shortcut key through the Color Categories dialog box.
You should now see the category that you just created in your category list. To assign these categories to your contacts, follow these steps:
In the Contacts folder, right-click any item in the contacts list.
Click Categorize on the shortcut menu.
Select the category that you just added.
Now that you have categorized your contacts, it’s time to view them. To do this, open any list view that includes the Categories column, right-click the Categories column, and choose Group By This Field.
Note
For more information about categories, see Chapter 5.
As an experienced user of Windows, you probably need little if any explanation of how to print. So rather than focusing on basic printing commands, this section offers some insight into why you might print from the Contacts folder and what your options are when you do print.
Why print? If you’re like most people, you probably try to work from your computer as much as possible and reduce the amount of paper that you generate. The completely paperless office is still a distant goal for most people, however, and there will be times when you want to print your contacts list. For example, you might need to take a copy of your contacts with you on a business trip, but you don’t have a notebook computer. A hard copy of your contacts is the solution to this problem.
Outlook 2010 supports several predefined styles that allow you to print contact information using various formats, including preprinted sheets for several popular day planners. You can print a single contact entry, a selection of entries, or all entries. To print a selection (one or more), first select the contact entries to print by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking each one. If you want to print all contacts, first select all the contacts. Then choose File, Print to open the Print page, shown in Figure 18-17.
In the Settings area of the Print page, you can select one of five print styles (depending on the contact view that you selected before clicking File, Print), each of which results in a different printed layout. You can use the styles as listed, modify them, or create new styles. To modify an existing style, double-click the style to open the Page Setup dialog box, which resembles the one shown in Figure 18-18.
Use the Format tab of this dialog box to specify fonts and shading and to set options such as printing a contact index on the side of each page, adding headings for each letter, and setting the number of columns. Use the Paper tab to select the type of paper, such as a preprinted sheet for your day planner, as well as to set up margins, paper source, and orientation. Use the Header/Footer tab to add a header, a footer, or both to the printout.
Note
For a detailed discussion of printing in Outlook 2010, see the section Printing in Outlook, on page 668.
Although Outlook 2010 provides several features for printing, your capability to customize the way that the printed documents look is rather limited. You can overcome this limitation by using Word 2010 rather than Outlook 2010 to print contacts. You have considerable control over how a Word 2010 document looks and is printed, making Word 2010 an excellent tool for custom printing. You can copy data from Outlook 2010 to Word 2010 manually, but it’s much more efficient to use a macro to automate the process and make custom contact printing a one-click process. Because the process requires macros and macros haven’t yet been covered in detail, refer to the section, Custom Printing with Scripts and Word, on page 676, which explains how to print contacts using Word 2010. It also includes sample macro code that you can tailor to your specific needs.
A contact group (also called a distribution list) is a collection of contacts. It provides an easy way to send messages to a group of people. For example, if you frequently send messages to the marketing team, you can create a contact group named Marketing Team that contains the names of all members of this team. A message sent to this contact group goes to all recipients who belong to the group. Outlook 2010 converts the address list to individual addresses, so recipients see their own names and the names of all other recipients in the To box of the message instead of seeing the name of the contact group. You can use contact groups in messages, task requests, and meeting requests.
Tip
INSIDE OUT Use nested contact groups
Contact groups can contain other contact groups as well as individual addresses. For example, you might create a contact group for each of seven departments and then create one contact group containing those seven others. You could use this second group when you need to send messages to all seven departments.
You can create contact groups in your Contacts folder using your contacts list. You can store addresses from any available source, such as the Global Address List (GAL), a contacts list, and so on. In general, you should create your contact groups in the location where you store the majority of your addresses.
Follow these steps to create a new contact group in the Contacts folder:
Open the Contacts folder and click New Contact Group to open a contact group form, as shown in Figure 18-19.
Type the name for your contact group in the Name box. This is the list name that will appear in your Contacts folder. If you’re creating a contact group for the marketing department, for example, use the name “Marketing.”
In the Members group, click Add Members and then choose From Address Book to open the Select Members dialog box, shown in Figure 18-20.
In the Address Book drop-down list, select the location from which you want to select addresses (for example, the GAL or the Contacts folder).
In the Search box, type a name that you want to include, which locates the name in the list, or select the name from the Name list, and then click Members.
Repeat steps 4 and 5 to add all addressees to the list, and then click OK when you’ve finished.
If you want to add a longer description of the contact group, click Notes and type the text.
Click Save & Close. The new contact group is added to your contacts list.
You probably realized that Outlook offers a couple of other options for adding members to a group. When you click Add Members, Outlook offers two additional options: From Outlook Contacts and New E-mail Contact. Choose the former if you want to add members from your Contacts folder. Choose the latter if you simply want to add an email address to the group.
You can add and delete names in a contact group easily. For example, perhaps your department has added a few new employees and you need to add their addresses to the department contact group.
Follow these steps to add or remove names in a contact group:
In your Contacts folder, open the contact group to display the contact group form.
Perform one or more of the following actions as desired:
To add an address from an address book or a contacts folder, click Add Members, and then choose either From Outlook Contacts or From Address Book.
To add an address that is not in a contacts folder or an address book, click Add Members, New E-mail Contact.
To delete a name, click the name, and then click Remove Member.
Click Save & Close.
Tip
INSIDE OUT Fine-tune contact groups
You can assign categories to a contact group, mark it as private, or add notes to it by using the contact group form. You can also update addresses in a contact group if their source addresses have changed. For example, if you’ve changed a colleague’s email address in the contact entry and now want to update the corresponding address in the contact group, you can open the contact group, select the address, and click Update Now on the contact group form.
Outlook 2010 lets you share contacts with others by sending vCards through email or by sharing your Contacts folder. The former method lets you share contacts with people who don’t use Outlook 2010 or who don’t have access to your network or to your computer running Exchange Server. The latter method—sharing your Contacts folder—is a good solution when you need to provide access to contacts for others on your network. This section explains how to share contacts through vCards, offers a brief overview of sharing the Contacts folder, and explains how to share contacts from a public folder.
Note
You can use WSS or SharePoint Server to share contacts and even integrate those contacts within Outlook 2010. See Chapter 38, to learn how to work with and share contacts from a SharePoint site.
If you’re running Outlook 2010 with Exchange Server, you can assign permissions to a folder stored in your Exchange Server mailbox to give other users access to that folder. You can grant permissions on a group basis or a per-user basis. Outlook 2010 provides two groups by default—Anonymous and Default—that you can use to assign permissions on a global basis. You also can add individual users to the permissions list and use contact groups to assign permissions.
Follow these steps to set permissions on your Contacts folder to allow other users access to your contacts:
Open the Folder List, right-click the Contacts folder, and then choose Share, Folder Permissions to display the Contacts Properties dialog box for the folder (see Figure 18-21).
Select the person for whom you want to configure permissions, and then click Add. Click OK to return to the Permissions tab.
In the Name box, select the name of the person that you just added.
In the Permission Level drop-down list, select a permissions level according to the tasks that the user should be able to perform with your Contacts folder. When you select a permissions level, Outlook 2010 selects one or more individual permissions in the Permissions area. You also can select or clear individual permissions as needed.
Click OK to save the permission changes.
You can grant several permissions for a folder, and you can assign them in any combination you need. See the section Sharing Your Calendar, on page 849, to learn more about sharing permissions for Outlook folders.
Note
For a complete explanation of permissions and folder sharing, see the section Granting Access to Folders, on page 842.
A vCard presents contact information as an electronic business card that can be sent through email. vCards are based on an open standard, allowing any application that supports vCards to share contact information. In addition to sending a vCard as an attachment, you can include it with your message signature.
When you receive a message with a vCard attached, a paper clip icon appears in the Reading pane to indicate the attached vCard. Use one of the following methods to add the data in the vCard as a contact entry:
In the Reading pane, click the file name that appears.
If you’ve opened the message, right-click the business card icon in the message, and then choose Open.
After you can view the information sent in the vCard, click Save & Close to add the information to your contacts list.
As mentioned earlier, one way to send contact information to someone else is to attach the contact entry to a message as a vCard. You can use this method to share your own contact information or to share one or more other contact entries with another person.
Follow these steps to attach a vCard to a message:
In the Contacts folder, select the contact item that you want to send as a vCard.
On the Home tab, click Forward Contact and choose As A Business Card. Outlook 2010 opens a new message form with the contact entry attached as a vCard.
Specify an address, complete the message as you would any other, and then click Send to send it.
The second method of sharing a contact is useful when you want to share your own contact information. Rather than attaching it to a message, you can have Outlook 2010 send it along with your message signature, which ensures that the vCard is sent with all outgoing messages.
Note
You can attach text (such as a favorite quote) and graphics to each outgoing message as part of your signature. For complete details on using signatures with Outlook 2010, see the section Using Signatures, on page 273.
Follow these steps to add your contact information as a vCard to your message signature:
Create your own contact entry if you have not already done so.
Click File, Options.
Click Mail, Signatures.
Click New.
Enter a name for your signature (such as vCard).
Click Business Card.
Browse to your own business card, and then click OK.
In the Signatures And Stationery dialog box, shown in Figure 18-22, add other information as needed.
Click OK twice.
From now on, your contact information will be attached to outgoing messages.
In addition to sending vCards as email attachments, Outlook 2010 allows you to save a contact entry to a file as a vCard. You might do this if you want to link to vCards on a website so that others can download the vCards directly rather than receiving a message with the vCards attached. Alternatively, perhaps you want to save a large number of contacts as vCards and send them to someone in a .zip file or on a CD.
When you receive a message containing a vCard attachment, you’ll probably want to save the vCard as a contact item in your Contacts folder. Follow these steps to do so:
Open the message containing the attached vCard.
Double-click the attached vCard to open it.
In the open contact form, click Save & Close. The information in the vCard is saved in your Contacts folder by default.
Outlook 2010 provides several options that control how it stores and displays contacts. To view these options, click File, Options, and then click Contacts in the left pane. On the Contacts page of the Outlook Options dialog box, shown in Figure 18-23, you can configure the following options:
Default “Full Name” Order This option specifies how Outlook 2010 creates the Full Name field when you click Full Name in the new contact form and enter the contact’s first, middle, and last names, along with suffix and title.
Default “File As” Order This option specifies the name that Outlook 2010 uses in the card title. Outlook 2010 uses the information that you specify for first, middle, and last name, as well as company, to create the card title based on how this option is set.
Check For Duplicates When Saving New Contacts Select this check box if you want Outlook 2010 to check for duplicate contacts when you create new contacts.
Show Contacts Linked To The Current Item When contacts are linked to other Outlook items, show those contacts when viewing the item.
Show An Additional Index Use this option to display a second index at the right edge of the Contacts folder in a different language.
Display Online Status Next To Name Show online presence information for the contact.
Show User Photographs When Available Show photos for those users who have a photo associated in Outlook or through the Outlook Social Connector.
Automatically Create Outlook Contacts For Recipients That Do Not Belong To An Outlook Address Book Use this option to create contacts in the Suggested Contacts folder automatically when you send and receive messages to or from contacts not already in one of the Contacts folders.
Contacts can be a very powerful tool in Outlook 2010. As with any Outlook 2010 feature, you can use them in different ways to suit your needs, and how you use them might not be the most effective way for someone else. However, there are some things you can do to make contacts more useful:
Be complete The more information that you can include for each contact, the more useful your contacts will be. For example, fill in as many of the phone number fields as you can; this will give you more options when using Outlook 2010 to dial a contact.
Use categories to your advantage Assigning categories to your contacts will help you organize them more effectively—for example, keeping your personal contacts separated from your business contacts.
Enter the company name for your business contacts Entering the company name in the contact will enable you to group your contacts by company, making it easier not only to locate contacts but also to modify contacts globally when a company change occurs (such as a phone number or company name change).
Work from the contact If you work in the Contacts folder a lot, keep in mind that you can initiate certain actions from the Contacts folder, such as issuing a new meeting request, assigning a task, creating a new journal entry, or calling the contact. This can save you the trouble of switching to a different folder to initiate these actions.
Don’t forget the picture The capability to add a picture can be very useful. For example, if your organization is growing rapidly or is already large, providing pictures in contacts for employees can help your staff get to know everyone.