Creating New Contacts in Outlook
The Contacts Folder in Outlook provides users with an electronic personal address book. Individual contacts and personal distribution lists are stored here and can be used to quickly send an email to one or several individuals. This week's tip will cover adding contacts to the Contacts Folder. Next week the tip will address creating a Personal Distribution List.
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Contacts Folder
The Contacts Folder is opened by clicking on the Contacts button on the Outlook Bar.
The Contacts Folder has several different views, with the default and most commonly used being the Address Cards View. A sample address card is shown below.
Other commonly used views include Detailed Address Cards and Phone List. The Phone List view is helpful when users want to print their Contacts.
Creating a New Contact
There are a few different ways to add contacts to the Contacts Folder, including entering the information into the contact dialog box, right clicking on the sender's name in a mail message and selecting "add to contacts", dragging a mail message to the contacts button on the Outlook Bar and dropping it on the Contacts Button.
New Contact Dialog Box
Begin by clicking on the arrow next to the New Contact button.
Notice that both the New Contact and the Distribution List are listed at the top of the menu when the Contacts Folder is open. Now, either click on the New button or on Contact on the menu. This will open the New Contact dialog box. Fill out the box with the information known about the contact. Notice there are 5 tabs across the top of the dialog box. The General tab is the where most key information is stored.
Once all the information is added, click on Save and Close.
Creating a Contact from a Mail Message
In the preview pane right-click on the sender's name. A menu of information about that user (this is very handy) and the option to add the user to the Outlook Contacts folder appears. Click on Add to Outlook Contacts. This will open a Contact dialog box. The information available about that contact from the mail message will be automatically added to the form. Users who are on the UW Colleges and UW Extension mail server will have more information that outside users in most cases. This is a good time to remind users that since UWC and UWEX users are in the Global Address Book, they do not necessarily need to be added to the Contacts Folder. One example of an exception would be for users who synch a PDA to Outlook and need phone numbers of those UWC and UWEX users they correspond with by phone while away from the office.
Drag a Mail Message to the Contacts Button to Create a Contact
Click on a mail message from a sender you want to add to your Contacts Folder. Drag the message to the Outlook Bar and drop it on the Contacts button. This will open a New Contact dialog box. Notice the available information from the sender is filled in for you. The mail message content is also added to the Contact dialog box.
Next week the Computing Tip will cover creating Personal Distribution Lists.