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Create a contact group
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Creating a new contact from the same company
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Using mail merge with Outlook
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Monitor contact activities
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Use Suggested Contacts
CREATING A CONTACT GROUP (DISTRIBUTION LIST)
Discussion
A Contact Group is a way to group e-mail addresses under one name. A message sent to a Contact Group goes to all recipients listed in the group. You can include Contact Groups in messages, task requests, meeting requests and in other Contact Groups.
The Contact Group window
There is no maximum number of names that you can include in a Contact Group.
You type the name of a Contact Group into the address bar of a new message, complete the message with additional recipients, subject and body text, etc. and click Send. The name of the Contact Group appears with an expand button at the left. The purpose of the expand button is to display all the individual addresses from the group in the address bar of the message. You can then delete addresses that you do not wish to send the message to on this occasion. Removing an address from a group in this way does not permanently remove it from the Contact Group. If you expand a group, you cannot collapse it again for that message.
Procedures
Creating a Contact Group
1. Open the Contacts folder.
2. Click the New Contact Group command in the New group of the Ribbon.
4. Click Add Members in the Members group.
5. Select from Address Book….
6. Search for and select people you want to include in the group.
7. Click Members at the bottom of the names list.
8. If necessary, select a different address book in the Address Book drop-down list,
eg. Contacts.
9. Repeat steps 5 to 7.
10. Click OK.
11. Click Save and Close in the Actions group of the Ribbon. The group is saved in
your Contacts folder.
Save a Contact Group received from someone
1. When you receive a message that includes a Contact Group that you want to use,
you can save it to your Contacts folder.
2. Open the message that contains the Contact Group.
3. In the To or Cc box, right-click the Contact Group, and then click Add to Outlook
Contacts.
Add a member to a Contact Group
1. View the Contacts folder.
2. Open the Contact Group item (double click it).
3. Click Add Members in the Members group.
4. Search for and select people you want to include in the group.
5. Click Members at the bottom of the names list.
6. If necessary, select a different address book in the Address Book drop-down list,
eg. Contacts.
7. Repeat steps 5 to 7.
8. Click OK.
9. Click Save and Close in the Actions group of the Ribbon. The group is saved with
the changes.
Remove a member from a Contact Group
1. View the Contacts folder.
2. Open the Contact Group item (double click it).
3. In the list of names, select the name that you want to remove.
4. Select the Contact Group tab on the Ribbon.
5. Click Remove Member in the Members group.
6. Click Save and Close in the Actions group of the Ribbon. The group is saved with
the changes.
Tip
Email addresses of people that you include in a group are not automatically updated if they change in the address book that they originate from.
It is advisable, therefore, to regularly click the Update Now command in the Members group of the Ribbon to ensure the latest addresses are used.
CREATING A SAME COMPANY CONTACT
Discussion
You can use the Contact from the Same Company feature to reduce time and effort when
adding multiple contacts from the same company or other organisation that shares the same basic contact information among its employees.
After you have entered the contact information for one contact from a company, it becomes a template on which other contacts can be based. The contacts that you create from this
template contact will contain the same information in the following contact fields:
• Company
• Web page address
• Business phone number
• Business Fax number
• Business address
After creating a new contact from the template, you can add information or edit any contact field as necessary for each individual.
Procedure
1. View the Contacts folder.
3. Click the bottom half of the Save & New command in the Actions group .
4. Click Contact from the Same Company .
5. Add information or edit any contact field as necessary for each individual.
6. Click Save and Close .
USING MAIL MERGE WITH OUTLOOK
Discussion
You can use the information in your Contacts folder as the data source for Microsoft Word
mail merges. This feature is helpful when you need to create labels, envelopes, or form letters. For example, you may need to send a mail shot to all of your customers that you have in your Contacts folder.
Outlook itself cannot carry out a mail merge, it has to “borrow” Word to do it. Outlook just sets up your contacts to be used as a data source. Users need to know how to carry out a mail merge in Word for successful execution and completion of the command.
For a mail merge, you can use all of your Outlook contacts or selected ones only, as well as all contact fields or the fields that only appear in the current Outlook view or a custom view you created. You can add the merge fields to a new Word document or to an existing one. You also have the option of saving the contacts in a merged file to use again. The document types available for the merge are form letters, mailing labels, envelopes, and catalogue. After selecting the document type, you can choose to merge the data to a new document, printer, e- mail, or other destination you have available.
For further information on how to carry out a mail merge in Word, refer to our Microsoft Word Level 2 book, Lesson 9.
Procedures
1. View the Contacts folder.
2. Click Mail Merge in the Actions group on the Home tab the Tools menu.
3. Select the desired option below Contacts.
4. Select the desired option below Fields to merge.
5. Select the desired option below Document file.
6. Click the Document type drop list below Merge options.
7. Select the type of mail merge document you want to produce.
8. Select the Merge to list below Merge options.
9. Select the destination to which you want to send the merged records.
10. Click OK.
11. Complete the mail merge in Microsoft Word.
MONITORING ACTIVITIES WITH CONTACTS
Discussion
Outlook allows you to track any activities that you have with a contact. For example, if you are working on a project with a contact, you can track all the emails, appointments and tasks that you and that person are involved in. It’s rather like creating cross-references between a contact and other places in Outlook where that person is mentioned.
You have to mark the fact that a contact is associated with an email, appointment, tasks, etc. by “tagging” it in the item’s properties. Once you open the properties window for an item, you enter the name of the contact that you want to associate with the item, in the Contacts box. If you have many contacts and are not sure of the correct spelling for a contact name, it
may be advisable to click the Contacts… button and select from the list. The properties
window is closed to save the setting; there is no OK button.
Example of a received or sent email’s properties window
The properties window for Outlook items is accessed by opening the item in its own window (double-click it) and selecting Properties under Info in the File tab. The only item not to have properties is Notes.
When you wish to view activities associated with a contact, you open the contact item
(double-click it) and select the Activities command in the Show group of the Contact tab on
the Ribbon.
Procedures
Associate a contact with an item
1. Open the Outlook item that you want to associate with a contact in its own
window (double-click it). 2. Select the File tab.
3. Select Info at the left.
4. Click Properties.
5. Enter the name of the contact on the Contacts box or, click the Contacts… button
and select from the list.
6. Click Close on the properties window.
View activities for a contact
7. Open the contact in its own window (double-click it).
8. Click the Activities command in the Show group of the Contact tab.
Tip
If you frequently wish to associate contacts with your Outlook items, you can add a Contacts text box and select button at the bottom of appointment, task, contacts and journal forms. Click the File tab > Options > Contacts
Appointment form showing Contacts box and button
USING SUGGESTED CONTACTS
Discussion
When you enter an address into a new email, Outlook “remembers” it. So next time you started typing the same address into the To: CC; or BCC box(es) of a new message, a list of matches appeared below for you to pick from and complete the address. This feature is
known as the Autocomplete list.
The Autocomplete list
In addition to the Autocomplete list, Outlook 2010 introduces the Suggested Contacts feature. This creates contacts for addresses you send messages to when the address is not already in your address books, and stores them is a separate Suggested Contacts folder. This is so as not to “pollute” your normal Contacts folder with entries that you have just used as a one-off. Unlike the AutoComplete List, you can search your suggested contacts, and there is no maximum number of suggested contacts. The AutoComplete list has a maximum of 1,000 entries.
To view and manage your suggested contacts, view the Contacts folder and click Suggested
Contacts under My Contacts at the top of the Navigation Pane. You can use the Suggested Contacts folder in the same way as other contacts folders that you have.
If you prefer not to use Suggested Contacts, you can disable it in Outlook Options. Although this will stop Outlook from creating new contacts in the Suggested Contacts folder, it will not delete any contacts already in there.
Tip
Suggested Contacts is turned on by default. Because Suggested Contacts is considered part of Outlook Address Book, some synchronization programs might attempt to synchronize the contacts to other devices.
Tip
The Suggested Contacts folder can contain a large number of entries. To prevent synchronization of the Suggested Contacts folder, review the documentation provided by your
synchronization software. You can also exclude the folder as part of the Outlook Address Book. This might prevent the folder from being synchronized with other devices.
Procedure
Find a suggested contact when composing a message
1. Create a new message.
2. Click the To, Cc, or Bcc button to open the Select Names dialog box.
3. Click the Address Book drop-down list.
4. Click Suggested Contacts.
5. Search for and select a contact.
6. Click To, Cc, or Bcc.
7. Click OK, to return to the message window.
8. Complete and send the message as normal.
Review or search Suggested Contacts 1. Contacts folder.
2. Under My Contacts, click Suggested Contacts.
3. In the Instant Search box, begin typing part of the name or email address. To
quickly jump to the Instant Search box, press CTRL+E.
4. As you type, the contacts shown will be filtered to match.
Add a Suggested Contact to your Outlook Contacts 1. Contacts folder.
6. Click Contacts. If Contacts doesn’t appear in the list, click Other Folder, select the Contacts folder, and then click OK.
To prevent Suggested Contacts being regarded as an Outlook address book 1. Contacts folder.
2. Under My Contacts, click Suggested Contacts.
3. Select the Folder tab.
4. In the Properties group, click Folder Properties.
5. On the Outlook Address Book tab, clear the Show this folder as an e-mail
Address Book check box.
To turn Suggested Contacts off completely 1. Select the File tab.
2. Click Options.
3. Click Contacts at the left.
4. Under Suggested contacts, select or clear the Automatically create Outlook
contacts for recipients that do not belong to an Outlook Address Book. To delete the contents of the Suggested Contacts folder.
1. Contacts folder.
2. Under My Contacts, click Suggested Contacts.
3. Select any contact.
4. Press CTRL+A.
5. On the Home tab, in the Delete group, click Delete or, press [Del] on the
keyboard.
MAKING CHANGES TO MULTIPLE CONTACTS
Discussion
If you store many contacts for a company and, for example, that company changes its name, it would be a very time-consuming task to change the company names for all the contacts individually.
Outlook, however, offers a quick way of doing this; in fact you can change any piece of information about multiple contacts (eg. fax number, postcode, etc.) in identical fashion. The technique is to change the information for one of the contacts, change the Contacts folder view so that the items are grouped by the field that you want to change, and then click and drag the entire group of contacts that have the old address into the group for the new one.
The task needs to be carried out in a table view such as List and have the Arrangement
changed. Depending on the field to be changed, the view may need customising to create the necessary grouping (see page 118).
Contacts folder grouped by Company
Procedure (changing a company name)
1. Open the Contacts folder.
2. Double click one the contacts whose details (eg. company) you want to change.
3. Make the necessary change.
4. Click Save and Close .
5. Select the View tab.
6. Click the Change View command in the Current View group.
7. Click List.
10. Identify the group with the new company name; the contact that you changed in steps 2 to 4 above will be listed under it.
11. Identify the group with the old company name.
12. Hold the mouse pointer over the group heading of the old company name.
13. Click and drag until the mouse pointer is over or under the new group heading.
The “Help Tip” under the tail of the pointer will display: “Change Company to <new
company>”
14. Release the mouse button.
15. If desired, restore List view back to its default setting and the Calendar folder back
to Business Card view as follows: a. Select the View tab.
b. Click Reset View in the Current View group .
c. Click the Change View▼ command.
d. Click Business Cards.
NB. Although changing company name has been used in this procedure, you can use the
same techniques for changing other fields; the main difference being in step 8 when you group by a different field (eg. Business Fax). If the field that you wish to group by does not