8. Contacts

Contact management is one reason many people choose Outlook over other email clients. Not only can you store email addresses, phone numbers, and mailing addresses in contacts, but you can also store personal information such as your contacts’ birthdays, anniversary dates, and spouses’ or children’s names.

You can use contacts as an email addresses book, or to address letters in Word. Smartphones and tablets can synchronize their address books with Outlook contacts. This chapter shows you how to create and manage your contacts.

Each contact in the People Hub displays data from all sources Outlook links together. For example, if you have an Outlook contact for a person, and are friends on Facebook and LinkedIn, contact information from all three sources is displayed on one contact card in the People Hub. The contact card includes links to each data source, and you can edit the Outlook contact from the People pane (see Figure 8.1).

When a modem, Skype, or Lync is installed, you can initiate a call to the contact from the contact card.

When you click the Edit link in the Reading pane, you can edit the contact in place. If you double-click the contact (or right-click and choose Edit contact), the contact card opens in a new window. Edit the fields or click the plus sign icon to add more fields to the card. When you are finished, click Save (see Figure 8.2).

You can drag the contact card to reposition it on the screen, or you can resize the card by dragging the resize handle in the lower-right corner. The contact card remains open until you click the X to close the card.

If you need to edit the full contact, click Cancel, and then click the links under the View Source heading to edit the Outlook contact. You can also view the contact’s Facebook, LinkedIn, or SharePoint profile by clicking links on the contact card.

To open it, click the Link Contacts hyperlink to open the Linked Contacts dialog box (see Figure 8.3). When you hover over a contact, an x is visible on the right. Click it to unlink the contact.

To link a contact to the current contact, type a contact’s name in the Link Another Contact field and search for more contacts to link to this contact.

You don’t need to view a contacts folder to create a new contact. You can do it from any Outlook folder, using the Ctrl+Shift+C keyboard shortcut. If you prefer using the mouse, click New Items, and then click Contact to open a new, blank contact form. Fill in the fields, click Save, and then click the Close button. The contact is saved to the default Contacts folder (see Figure 8.4).

The General page of the contact form includes fields for your contact’s name, the employer, three physical addresses, 19 phone numbers, three email addresses, notes, websites, and IM addresses. You can also add photos or images to a contact, which display on email messages from the contact.

The business card displays the contact’s name, address, and phone numbers. It can be customized to include a business logo or image.

The Details page (see Figure 8.5) is opened by clicking the Details button. It contains fields for additional information, including the contact’s manager and assistant names, and the Internet Free/Busy publishing location. Personal information, such as the contact’s birth date, anniversary, and spouse’s name, is also entered on the Details page. Recurring events are automatically created in the calendar when you enter the birth date and anniversary of a contact.

In addition to the Contact form, Outlook 2013 also uses a contact card to display your contacts. Contact cards display contact information when you move the cursor over an email address in Outlook. The contact cards display the contacts in a simpler card format; however, not all contact fields are available on contact cards.

To create a new contact using the contact form, follow these steps:

1. Open a contact by clicking on New Items on the Home tab, and then Contact.

2. Enter your contact’s name.

3. Fill in the other fields as needed.

4. On the Contact tab, click on Picture, and then Add Picture to add a photo or image.

5. Click the Details button.

6. Enter the birthday and anniversary dates.

7. Click Save & Close when you are finished.

Although you can create a new contact by opening a new contact form and typing in the contact information, you can also create contacts for people who send you email messages. When you use this method, the name and email address fields are filled in automatically.

1. Select a message.

2. Right-click a name and email address in the From, To, or CC field.

3. Choose Add to Outlook Contacts.

4. Fill in the desired fields.

5. Click the plus sign (+) to add email, phone, and address fields.

6. Drag the lower-right corner to resize the form.

7. Click Save when you’re finished.

When you click Save, the contact is saved to your Contacts folder. The contact card remains open onscreen. Click Close to close it. If you want to add a contact photo or an attachment, click the link under View Source to open the full contact form (see Figure 8.6).

Click the ellipsis (. . .) to add the contact to the People Peek Favorites or to link the contact to other contacts. You may have additional options listed, including adding the contact to LinkedIn, Facebook, or other social networks. If you have Skype or Lync installed, you can link the contact to those services and tag a contact so you are alerted when they come online. If Business Contact Manager (BCM) is installed, you can add the contact to BCM from here.

Add the new contact’s name and email address, and then click Save & Close.

In addition to adding an image or logo to the business card, you can control which contact fields display on the business card, the text size, color, and position (see Figure 8.8).

That’s all there is to it. If you want to change the photo, repeat the process and select a new image.

Follow these steps to customize a Contact’s business card:

1. Open the Contact.

2. Double-click the business card to open the Edit Business Card dialog box (see Figure 8.9).

3. The business card in the upper left displays the current card layout.

4. Use the Card Design options on the right to change the size, alignment, and location of the contact picture or replace it with a different image. You can also add a background color.

5. Add, remove, or rearrange the contact fields that display on the card in the Field section in the lower left.

6. Select a field and use the Move Field Up and Move Field Down buttons to reorder the fields, or click Remove to delete the field. Changes are reflected immediately in the business card.

7. Click the Add button to add additional contact fields to the card.

8. Customize the formatting of the selected field on the right side of the Edit section. If the data in any field is incorrect, you can edit it in this dialog box and changes are updated in the contact and the business card.

When you’re done editing the business card, click OK to save the change and return to the contact. If you don’t want to keep the changes, click Reset. This removes all customizations and restores the default business card.

1. Open the Contact Group form by using the New Contact Group button or by pressing Ctrl+Shift+L.

2. Type a name for your Contact Group in the Name field.

3. Click the Add Members button and choose From Outlook Contacts (see Figure 8.10).

4. Double-click each address that you want to include in the group, or select the contacts and click the Members button to add the names to the Members field.

5. Click OK when you are finished selecting names to return to the contact group.

6. To add addresses of people who are not in your contacts folder, go to Add Members and select New Email Contact and enter the name and email address.

If you have a list of addresses in Excel or Notepad, you can add your contact group in one step. The list needs to be comma or semicolon separated or have one address per row.

1. Copy the list of email addresses.

2. Click the Add Members button and choose From Outlook Contacts.

3. At the bottom of the dialog box, paste the list in the Members field and press OK.

4. If you want to add notes about this contact group, click the Notes button.

5. Save and close the group when you are finished.

You can send email to the group or create a meeting invitation by clicking the Email or Meeting buttons on the contact group form, but it’s usually easier to select or type the group address in the To, CC, or BCC field of an email or meeting request.

After addressing a message with the contact group, you can click the plus sign beside the group name to expand the list and see the individual names.

If you need to remove a member from the Contact Group, select the name or address and click the Remove Member button on the ribbon.

Don’t click the large X icon labeled Delete Group unless you want to delete the entire group. Surprisingly, this happens a lot. If you make this mistake, find the group in the Deleted Items folder and drag it back to the Contacts folder.

When you update a contact with a new email address, any groups the contact belongs to are not automatically updated. You’ll need to click the Update Now button to update the contact group. Repeat this for every contact group the contact belongs to (see Figure 8.11).

You can send an email to a group of contacts using categories. Following are the steps.

1. Assign a category to each contact who belongs to the group.

2. Switch to the View tab, click Change view, and then click List.

3. In the Arrangement section, select Categories.

4. Click the category group name (see Figure 8.12).

5. Switch to the Home tab, and in the Communicate section, click the Email button.

A new message addressed to every contact in the category opens.

The benefits of using this method are that the group is dynamic, the addresses are always current, and deleting a member is as easy as removing the category from the contact. This is good for mailing lists where the contact group membership changes frequently. You can also use the list in a mail merge.

The benefits of using a Contact Group is that it’s easier to put the group in the CC or BCC field, and you can begin the message from any folder or easily add the group to a reply. If your group membership is stable and rarely needs editing, a contact group works well.

Sometimes the Auto-Complete list contains old addresses that are no longer used or mistyped addresses. You can delete these when they come up, either by selecting them with the arrow keys and pressing the Delete key or using the mouse to click the x on the right (see Figure 8.13).

If you don’t want to use auto-complete, you can disable it in File tab, Options, Mail. Look in the Send messages section for “Use Auto-Complete list to suggest names when typing in the To, CC, and BCC lines.” If your auto-complete list has a large number of “bad” names, you can empty the list from this dialog box as well (see Figure 8.14).

If auto-resolution offers you the wrong addresses, type a space or semicolon after the name, and Outlook underlines the name in red, allowing you to pick a different name from the address book.

Some of the menu items work only when one contact is selected, whereas other commands, including Email and Meeting buttons, open a message or meeting request addressed to all the selected contacts.

When the contact is open, you can view the contact’s web page or view its address on a map at Bing.com.

From the Home tab, you can automatically use the contact data for the following actions:

• Send an email message to the contact.

• Create a meeting request addressed to the contact.

• Assign Tasks to the contact.

• Call the contact using one of the phone numbers entered on the contact form.

• Create a new contact using the company information from the selected contact.

• Share your contacts with co-workers (this requires Exchange Server).

• Open a co-worker’s contacts folder that was shared with you (requires Exchange Server).

Open the Address Book by clicking the Address book button on the Home tab. You can also open it using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+B.

Click on Tools, and then Options menu to access Address book options. In this dialog box, you’ll choose the order addresses are resolved in when you type partial names. You can also choose which address list is shown first when you click the To button (see Figure 8.16).

Your choices are the following:

• Start with Global Address List (Exchange Server accounts)—If you send more email to co-workers than contacts, you’ll want to check names against the Exchange Server Global Address List (GAL) first.

• Start with contact folders—When most of the email is sent to your contacts, you’ll want the contact folders listed first.

• Custom—You choose the order Outlook uses. Select the address list and use the arrow button to change the order.

This dialog box is also where you choose which address book is shown first when you click the To button or open the Address book.

These settings affect how addresses are sorted in the Address Book and Contacts folder. To change these options, click File, click Options, and then click People to open.

Choose from the following options for the Full Name and File As Order:

• Default “Full Name” Order—Choices include First (Middle) Last; Last First; First Last1 Last2. When you use either of the First Last formats, you can type the last name first if you use a comma separator. When you set it for Last First you do not need to use a comma between the last and first names.

• Default “File As” Order—Choices are Last, First; First Last; Company, Last, First (Company) and Company (Last, First).

• Check for Duplicates When Saving New Contacts—This checks the first and last name fields for matches. If Outlook finds an exact match, you’ll be given the chance to merge the contacts or create a new one (see Figure 8.18).

• Show an Additional Index—This adds another index, in one of several languages, to the People and Card view. The index can also be enabled or disabled by clicking the globe icon at the bottom of the Index column.

• Display Online Status Next to the Name—When Lync or Skype is installed, the status of your contacts is shown beside their name in the Reading pane and open messages.

• Show User Photographs When Available (requires restarting Outlook)—When a contact includes a photo, it’s displayed in the Reading pane or open message, to the left of the subject field.

• Show only names in the People Peek (requires restarting Outlook).

One additional dialog affects your contacts and address book—the Address Book dialog in File, Account Settings, Address Book tab. Double-click Microsoft Outlook Address Book to open the options dialog and change how your contacts display in the address book. You can show contacts in First Last order or use the File As format as set on each contact (see Figure 8.19).

If there are contact folders you don’t want to see when you click the To button, you can remove them from this dialog. Or you can right-click the Contact folder you don’t want to use as an address book and choose Properties, click the Outlook Address Book tab, and then deselect the option Show This Folder as an E-mail Address Book. If you change your mind and want to use the Contact folder as an address book, re-select it on the Outlook Address Book tab.

When you use Search People, the search results contain matches for the first, middle, or last names or company name. Search Contacts searches by more fields and you can use criteria to limit the search results.

When you know part of the contact’s name but aren’t sure of the spelling, use initials or the first letters contained in their name. For example, in my Contacts list, entering “j b” or “j bar” will return the contacts for Jessie Bartee, Jim Barman, and Raja Abartish.

If you have a social networking account, such as LinkedIn or Facebook, you can sign in to your account and see updates and the profile picture of contacts or people who send you email.

• Selecting contacts for mail merge

• Changing some contact fields

• Limiting the display to contacts that meet specific conditions

• Controlling the layout for printed lists

The default views include

• People—This is a new view that displays linked contacts.

• Business Card—Displays the business card.

• Card—A card layout that displays basic contact data, including all addresses and phone numbers.

• Phone—A list view that includes the phone number fields. Use with the Arrangements to change how this view is grouped.

• List—Use the Arrangements to change how this view is grouped.

List views include these default arrangements:

• By Company—Groups contacts by company.

• By Category—Groups contacts by category.

• By Location—Groups contacts by country as selected in the Address field. Click the Business, Home, or Other button to see the Country/Region selector.

Card, Phone, and List views have in-cell editing enabled, enabling you to make changes to visible fields without opening the contact for editing. In most cases, when you group contacts by a field, you can drag contacts to other groups to change that field for the contact. This is helpful when you need to change a field used by many contacts, such as when a company name changes or when you’re categorizing contacts.

The default views are customizable, or you can create custom views. To change the current view, go to the View tab and click the View settings button. Select Change View, Manage Views to create new views. You can apply the current view to other Contacts folders from the Change View button.

Create a group by view for the field that needs to be changed, and drag the contacts that need to be changed to the other group.

1. Switch to the View tab.

2. Expand the Change View button and select List.

3. In the Arrangement section, select Company.

4. If the list is not grouped by company, click Reset or right-click the Company field and choose Group by this field.

5. Edit one contact so the company name field is correct.

6. Select the group with the old company name and drag to the group with the new company name.

When you are finished changing the company name, click the Reset View button to restore the default view.

To add a contact to the People Peek, right-click a name or email address in a message or right-click a photo in the People Pane and choose Add to Favorites (see Figure 8.22).

Hover over the entries on the Favorites list to view the contact card and start an email, instant message, or phone call.

To remove a contact from the Favorites list, right-click the contact and choose Remove from Favorites.

Dock the people peek on the right edge of Outlook by clicking the dock icon in the open peek.