My Office 2016 (2016)
13. Keeping in Touch with Outlook Contacts
In this chapter, you learn about Outlook’s Contacts folder and how to use it to store contact information, import contact data, and work with contacts. Topics include the following:
Using the Contacts folder
Creating a new contact
Importing contact data from a file
Editing and working with contact data
Sending messages and meeting requests via the Contacts folder
Whether it’s working with clients, colleagues, or suppliers, contacting others is a big part of most people’s working day. It can also be time-consuming to constantly look up phone numbers, physical addresses, email addresses, web addresses, and so on. Streamlining these tasks—a process known as contact management—can save you a lot of time and make your work more efficient.
Outlook’s contact management feature is called, appropriately enough, Contacts. This folder gives you amazing flexibility for dealing with your ever-growing network of coworkers, customers, friends, and family. Yes, you can use Contacts to store mundane information such as phone numbers and addresses, but with more than 100 predefined fields available, you can preserve the minutiae of other people’s lives: their birthdays and anniversaries, the names of their spouses and children, and even their web page addresses. This chapter takes you inside the Contacts folder and shows you how to add and edit contacts, import contact data, and more.
Exploring the Contacts Folder
When you open the Contacts folder, Outlook displays a window divided into three vertical panes:
• Folder pane—This is the left pane and it shows just a single Contact item.
• Contacts list—This is the middle pane, and by default it displays a list of your contacts, sorted alphabetically by last name.
• Reading pane—This is the right pane, and it shows the details for the currently selected contact.
Switch to the Contacts Folder
When you launch Outlook, it displays the Inbox folder for your email, so you need to know how to switch to the Calendar folder.
1. Launch Outlook.
2. Click Contacts. Outlook switches to the Contacts folder.
Keyboard Shortcut
You can also switch to the Contacts folder by pressing Ctrl+3. To switch back to Inbox, press Ctrl+1.
>>>Go Further: Displaying the Contacts Folder at Startup
Outlook automatically opens the Inbox folder at startup, but you might find that you spend more time in the Contacts folder. Similarly, you might find that you always switch right away to the Contacts folder. In either scenario, you might prefer to have Outlook display the Contacts folder automatically at startup instead of the Inbox folder.
To set that up, click File and then click Options to display the Outlook Options dialog box. Click the Advanced tab. Beside the Start Outlook in this Folder box, click Browse to open the Select Folder dialog box. Click the Contacts folder and then click OK to return to the Outlook Options dialog box. Click OK.
Understanding the Contacts Folder Views
As with all of Outlook’s folders, you can view your contacts in several ways. For example, you can set up the Contacts folder to group items by Company or Location. Outlook has eight predefined views for the Contacts folder:
• People—Displays the Contacts folder as a list sorted alphabetically by last name, with a reading pane to the right to show the details of the selected contact. On the Home tab, select People in the Current View gallery.
• Business Card—Displays each item in the Contacts folder using a rectangular format reminiscent of a business card. On the Home tab, select Business Card in the Current View gallery.
• Card—Displays the Contacts folder as a kind of Rolodex, with each contact given its own “card” showing basic information. On the Home tab, select Card in the Current View gallery.
• Phone—Displays the contacts in a table format with the fields as columns. You see the full name, company name, and phone numbers for each contact. On the Home tab, select Phone in the Current View gallery.
• List—Displays the Contacts folder in a format similar to the Phone view, but with contacts grouped by Company name. On the Home tab, select List in the Current View gallery.
• Categories—Groups the contacts on the Categories field and displays them in a table format. Within each category, contacts are sorted by the File As field. On the View tab, select Categories in the Arrangement gallery. This option requires that you also select Phone or List in the Home tab.
• Company—Sorts the contacts on the Company field. On the View tab, select Company in the Arrangement gallery. This option requires that you also select Phone or List in the Home tab.
• Location—Sorts the contacts on the Country/Region field. On the View tab, select Location in the Arrangement gallery. This option requires that you also select Phone or List in the Home tab.
Adding a New Contact
A nearly empty Contacts folder is not very useful, so you should get right down to adding some new cards. This section shows you various methods of setting up new contacts. You first learn how to add a contact by hand and then I show you several easier methods for adding contacts.
Create a New Contact from Scratch
Although Outlook can store a contact’s data using dozens of separate fields, you can enter as little or as much data as you need, with the contact name being the bare minimum.
1. Click the Home tab.
2. Click New Contact. Outlook opens the Contact window.
Keyboard Shortcut
In the Contacts folder, you can start a new contact by pressing Ctrl+N.
3. Fill in as many of the fields as you need.
4. Complete the contact: If you are finished adding contacts, click Save & Close; if you want to add more contacts, click Save & New and then repeat steps 2 and 3.
>>>Go Further: Using the Details and All Fields Forms
When you add a contact, the Contact window by default displays the General form, which represents the most commonly used contact fields. The next set of commonly used fields includes the contact’s Department, Profession, Manager’s Name, and Assistant’s Name. On the personal side, it also includes the contact’s nickname, spouse or partner’s name, birthday, and anniversary. To view these and other fields, click Details in the Contact tab’s Show group.
As I mentioned earlier, Outlook defines more than 100 fields for each contact. If a particular field you need to fill in is not displayed in the General form or the Details form, you can find it in the All Fields form. To display this form, click All Fields in the Contact tab’s Show group. Use the Select From drop-down list to click a category of fields to work with. (If you’re not sure, click All Contact Fields to see every available field.) Find the field you want and then type your data in the Value column.
Finally, if you still do not see a field to hold a particular type of data, create your own field by clicking the New button that appears at the bottom of the All Fields forms. In the New Field dialog box, type a Name, click a data Type, and then click a Format.
Understanding Outlook’s Contact Data Fields
Most of the data fields provided by Contacts are straightforward; you just type in the appropriate data. However, the following list gives you some details about certain fields in the General form.
• Full Name—Use the Full Name text box to type the name of the contact. To type more detailed information, click the Full Name button to display the Check Full Name dialog box, which lets you type not only separate first, middle, and last names, but also the appropriate title (Mr., Ms., and so on) and suffix (Jr., II, and so on).
• File As—Outlook uses the File As field to determine where the contact appears alphabetically. In most cases, Outlook uses the format Last, First, where Last is the person’s last name and First is the person’s first name. For example, if you type Paul Walker in the Full Name box, Outlook adds Walker, Paul to the File As field. However, this format is not what you want if the Full Name field contains an organization name. In this case, you can either edit the File As field directly, or you can drop down the list and click the First Last format (for example, Paul Walker).
• Phone Number—Outlook can record up to 19 phone numbers for each contact. The default Contact window just shows fields for the four most common numbers: Business, Home, Business Fax, and Mobile. Other phone number possibilities include Assistant, Callback, Home Fax, and Pager. To add a different number, use the drop-down lists provided to click the type of number you want to add. (If you want to add phone numbers in addition to the ones displayed, you need to switch to the All Fields form.)
If you want to specify phone number extras such as the country/region code or the extension, use the following format:
+Country (Area) Local x Ext
Here, Country is the country/region code, Area is the area code, Local is the local number, and Ext is the extension. Alternatively, click the button beside the phone number field you are using to display the Check Phone Number dialog box.
• Address—You use the Addresses section field to type the contact’s street address, city, state or province, ZIP or postal code, and country. Use the drop-down list to specify whether this is a Business, Home, or Other address. If this is the contact’s mailing address, click the This is the Mailing Address check box to activate it. As with the name and phone number, you can also use a dialog box to type specific address information. Click the button beside the address field to display the Check Address dialog box.
• E-mail—Use the E-mail field to type the contact’s email address. Note that Outlook can hold up to three email addresses for each contact (E-mail, E-mail 2, and E-mail 3). In each case, use the Display As field to set how Outlook displays the email address when you add this contact to the To, Cc, or Bcc field of an email message. The default format is Name (Address), where Name is the text in the Full Name field and Address is the text in the E-mail field. If you want to display just the name, just the address, or some other text, edit the Display As field accordingly.
Create a Contact from the Same Company
Having multiple contacts from the same company is common. In most cases, these people have a number of fields in common, including the Company, the Business Address, the Web Page Address, and possibly the Business Phone and Business Fax numbers. Rather than typing these common field values for each contact, you can save time by asking Outlook to create a new contact using the company data of an existing contact.
1. Click the contact that has the company data you want to use for the new contact.
2. Click the Home tab.
3. Click New Items.
4. Click Contact from the Same Company. Outlook creates a new contact, adds the company data, and displays the Contact window.
Using the Contact Window
If you just created a new contact and you still have the Contact window open, you can create another contact using the same company data by clicking the lower half of the Save & New button and then clicking Contact from the Same Company.
5. Fill in the rest of the fields, as needed.
6. Complete the contact: If you are finished adding contacts, click Save & Close; if you want to add more contacts, click Save & New and then repeat steps 1 to 5.
Create a Contact from an Email Message
Another quick way to add someone to your Contacts list is to create the new contact item from an existing email message.
1. Click the Inbox folder.
2. Click a message from the person you want to add as a contact.
3. Right-click the sender’s address.
4. Click Add to Outlook Contacts. Outlook displays a scaled-down version of the new contact window and fills in the person’s Name and Email address.
5. Fill in the rest of the fields, as needed.
6. Click Save. Outlook creates the new contact.
Importing Contact Data
If you have your contact data in some other application, chances are you will be able to import that data into Outlook and save yourself the hassle of retyping all that information. Outlook comes with an Import and Export Wizard that makes the task easy.
Import Contact Data
This task assumes that you have used another program to save the data you want to import using the comma separated values (.csv) format.
1. Click File.
2. Click Open & Export.
3. Click Import/Export. The Import and Export Wizard appears.
4. Select Import from Another Program or File.
5. Click Next.
6. Click Comma Separated Values.
7. Click Next.
8. Click Browse. The Browse dialog box appears.
9. Select the location of the file you want to import.
10. Click the file.
11. Click OK.
12. Select whether you want to allow Outlook to create duplicate contacts.
13. Click Next.
14. Make sure Contacts is selected as the destination folder.
15. Click Next.
16. Click Finish. Outlook imports the contacts.
>>>Go Further: Mapping Custom Fields
To ensure that the data is imported into the correct fields in your Contacts folder, you can click Map Custom Fields to display the Map Custom Fields dialog box. To map a field, click and drag it from the From list and drop it on the appropriate field in the To list. When you are done, click OK to return to the wizard.
Working with Your Contacts
You did not go to all the trouble of entering or importing contact data just to look up someone’s birthday or spouse’s name. No, with all that information at your fingertips, you will want to do some more substantial things. Like what? Well, Outlook gives you many choices. For example, you can send an email message to a contact, request a meeting, set up a new task, and map that person’s physical address, just to name a few. The following sections give you a quick tour of the methods you use to accomplish these and many other tasks from within the Contacts folder.
Edit Contact Data
Your Contacts list is only as useful as it is accurate and up-to-date, so it’s worthwhile to spend a bit of time maintaining your contacts by correcting erroneous entries, updating changed data, and adding any new information that comes your way.
1. From the People view, click the contact you want to edit.
2. Click Edit. Outlook opens the contact for editing. You can also double-click the contact to open it for editing in a separate window.
3. Edit the contact data, as needed.
4. Click Save. Outlook updates the contact with the edited data.
>>>Go Further: Editing Data for Multiple Contacts
If you work with a large Contacts list, having many contacts with the same data in a particular field is common. For example, you might have a number of contacts from the same company, in which case they will all have the same value in the Company field. Similarly, you might have a number of contacts from a particular department, in which case the contacts all have the same value in the Department field. This is fine until this common data changes. For example, if the name of the company or department changes, you need to edit the appropriate field for all the affected contacts.
You can avoid this tedious procedure by taking advantage of grouping. First, group the contacts according to the field you want to change. To do this, select a view that supports grouping (such as Phone or List), right-click the header of the field you want to group, and then click Group By this Field. (If you don’t see the field, click the View tab and then click Add Columns to add the field to the view.) Find the group that corresponds to the contacts you want to edit. Use the group’s first contact to edit the field you want to change. Outlook immediately adds a new group for the edited data and moves the first contact into that group. Now drag the group header for the rest of the contacts with the old data and drop it on the group header for the new data. Outlook updates all the contacts with the new field data.
Add a Picture for a Contact
You can make the Contacts list more useful and more interesting visually by adding a picture for some or all of your contacts.
1. From the People view, click the contact.
2. Click the link under the View Source heading. Outlook opens the full contact data for editing.
3. Click the Contact tab.
4. Click Picture.
5. Click Add Picture. The Add Contact Picture dialog box appears.
6. Select the location of the picture you want to use.
7. Click the picture.
8. Click OK. Outlook replaces the picture placeholder with the image you selected.
Send an Email to a Contact
If you have defined at least one email address for a contact, you can send that person a message directly from the Contacts folder.
1. From the People view, click the contact.
2. Under Send Email, click the address to which you want to send the message. Outlook creates a new message addressed to the contact.
3. Fill in the message details.
4. Click Send. Outlook sends the message to the contact.
Request a Meeting with a Contact
If you have defined at least one email address for a contact, you can send that person a meeting request directly from the Contacts folder.
1. From the People view, click the contact.
2. Click the Home tab.
3. Click Meeting. Outlook creates a new meeting request addressed to the contact.
4. Fill in the meeting request details.
5. Click Send. Outlook sends the meeting request to the contact.
View a Map of a Contact’s Address
If you plan on visiting a contact and you are not sure where the person is located, you would normally call or email the person to ask for directions. These days, however, doing so is a waste of time for both people because plenty of online resources are available that can show you where a particular address is located and how to get there. One of the best of these is the Bing Maps service from Microsoft. Even better, this service is integrated with Outlook 2016, so you can bring up a Bing map of a contact’s address right from the Contacts folder.
1. From the People view, click the contact.
2. Click the link under the View Source heading. Outlook opens the full contact data for editing.
3. Beside the address you want to view, click Map It. Outlook loads your web browser and displays a map showing the location of the contact address.
4. Click Directions to learn how to navigate to the address from your location.
Print a Contact Address on an Envelope or Label
If you want to send an envelope to one of your contacts, you can use Word and Outlook together to place the contact’s address directly on the envelope or on a label.
1. In Word, click the Mailings tab.
2. Click Envelopes. If you are creating a label, click Labels instead. Word displays the Envelopes tab (or the Labels tab) of the Envelopes and Labels dialog box.
3. Above the delivery address box, click the address book icon to open the Select Name dialog box.
4. Click the contact you want to use.
5. Click OK. Word copies the contact’s address and pastes it into the Delivery Address text box.
6. Fill in the rest of the envelope or label details. For example, if you’re printing an envelope, type your return address.
7. Click Print. Word prints the envelope (or label).
