No activities tab

[Doug]

We have set up a shared exchange mailbox with all our company contacts. The
intention is that any user can drag items into the shared folders so that
anyone can check all the activities/journals/emails for a company contact.

Unfortunately the Contacts folder in the shared mailbox doesn't have an
Activities tab. Nor does it have the option to make these contacts an
Outlook Address Book.

How do I get these two options into this shared mailbox's contacts?

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Only the folder owner would have access to the Activities tab, and even if you did, any user would be able to look at only a single folder's worth of activities -- if it worked at all.

The process of adding another user's Contacts folder to your own address book display is somewhat involved. You will need to be able to create -- at least temporarily -- an Outlook profile that opens another user's mailbox as the primary mailbox. Proceed with these steps while logged in under your own Windows account, not the other user's:

1. Create an Outlook profile that connects directly to the other user's mailbox, not your own. If you are using Outlook 2003, do not select the option to use Cached Exchange mode. Start Outlook with that profile.

2. On the Properties dialog for the other user's Contacts folder, make sure that it's set to display in the Outlook Address Book and give it a display name other than contacts, such as Joe's Contacts.

3. Close Outlook.

4. In Control Panel | Mail, edit the *same profile* (i.e. the one from Step 1) to change the mailbox from the other user's to your own.

5. Still working with the same profile, on the Advanced tab of the Exchange Server service, add the other user's mailbox as a secondary mailbox.

6. Restart Outlook, and you should see the Joe's Contacts in your Outlook Address Book as well as your own Contacts folder.

7. (Optional) If you are using Outlook 2003, you can now change the settings for your Exchange account to use Cached Exchange mode.


--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Doug]

Thanks for the reply.

WOW!! Complicated.

Outlook Contacts and activities tabs does a really good job for our
requirements. Better that 3 3rd party CRMs we've evaluated. We need the
shared mailbox to store the activities in. Originally we used Contacts in
Public Folders and that worked well.

However I didn't ike the idea of the Contacts not being stored with the
activities folders, so I imported the Public Folders Contacts into the shared
mailbox's contacts. That's when I found that the shared mailbox's contacts
didn't have an activities tab.

As about 10 people need this shared mailbox, perhaps we are better off using
Contacts from rhe Public folders.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Very complicated -- and public folders don't necessarily work any better for managing activities; see http://www.slipstick.com/journal/pfjournal.htm . Outlook's Activities feature is really designed only for individual use.

A PF is easier to use as an address list, though.
--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

Thanks for the reply.

WOW!! Complicated.

Outlook Contacts and activities tabs does a really good job for our
requirements. Better that 3 3rd party CRMs we've evaluated. We need the
shared mailbox to store the activities in. Originally we used Contacts in
Public Folders and that worked well.

However I didn't ike the idea of the Contacts not being stored with the
activities folders, so I imported the Public Folders Contacts into the shared
mailbox's contacts. That's when I found that the shared mailbox's contacts
didn't have an activities tab.

As about 10 people need this shared mailbox, perhaps we are better off using
Contacts from rhe Public folders.