Usefulness of shared contacts

[derek.pattenson]

I have a setup where we want to keep a corporate contact list
available to all users (but maintained centrally - users only need
read access). So we have a specific account that "owns" the global
contact list, and have shared that user's contact list. Other users
can successfully see and access this shared list in Outlook 2003 by
going to Other Contacts, clicking on the "master" user's name, and
their contacts are then displayed. From here it's possible to right-
click and choose "new message", "new appointment", "new meeting" and
"new task" - so far, so good, and exactly what we need.

However, suppose our user wants to send an email to TWO of the shared
contacts; they can start as above by choosing "new message", but if
they now click "Cc..." to add another of the shared contacts, they
can't find them. They don't appear in the "Global Address List", nor
under "Contacts", nor "All address lists", nor "Public folders". Even
if they type in a valid name for one of the contacts directly into the
CC box, it won't validate and expand to the email address from the
master contact list.

The way it is at present, sharing contacts is at best very long winded
(involving cutting and pasting of email addresses) and at worst
useless. Is this really so, or am I missing some step in the setup of
the master list?

Thanks,
Derek TP

 

[Judy Gleeson \(MVP Outlook\)]

You mentioned Public Folders - that's the better place to do what you want.
Make a folder there (the Exchange Administrator needs to do it) and set the
permissions so only your people (not the whole company) can get to it.

Enable that folder as an address book for each of your team members. (right
click it, properties, address book, tick Show as an Outlook address book).

Now the folder will be available in all the usual ways eg To... button,
Contacts Lookup window and you'll have a productive team!

Regards

Judy Gleeson
MVP Outlook

www.judygleeson.com

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[derek.pattenson]

Thanks Judy. In fact that's what I've done now anyway... defined the
public folder as holding items of type "contact" and set permissions
appropriately. This setup is actually going to be used by a web-based
application, which will maintain contact entries in sync with a custom
database. This all seems to work OK... the whole contacts / public
folders / address lists / GAL area seems far too complicated to me. OK
it's flexible but I shouldn't need to spend hours trawling the net and
posting on Usenet to find out how to setup a company-wide list of
external contacts!!

Ta,
Derek