Sharing Outlook Contacts

[Anne P.]

I have a question regarding shared contacts folders. In a firm using MS
Exchange, the firm has global address folders containing employee
information. Each user has a Contacts folder. In one group there will be a
secretary who works for 3 to 4 attorneys.

The attorney shares his/her Contacts folder with the secretary. After
setting the permissions (giving Editor or Publisher, etc), the secretary can
click the Open shared contacts link, choose the attorney's name from the
Name browse list and see the attorney's contacts folder in her Outlook.
However, if she creates a new e-mail message and tries to select the shared
Contacts folder (clicking the drop-down list for Show names from the: field
in the upper right corner), only one Contacts folder is shown and that is
the secretary's so she cannot address e-mails from the attorney's Contacts
list. In addition, in Microsoft Word their templates (letter, fax, etc) are
linked to Outlook Contacts so that they can choose names, however, the same
problem occurs. The secretary can only choose from her own Contacts.

Is there some additional setting that needs to be made on either the
attorney or secretary's machine (or in MS Exchange) that allows her to
actually use the shared contacts folder?

Thanks,
Anne P.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

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, and 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.


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

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