Maintaining Information About People with the Contacts List


A contacts list can be used to share information about people such as their email address, phone numbers, street address, company name, and job title. A sales department could use a contacts list for sharing client contact information by product. A school could use a contacts list to maintain information about their students.

In Chapter 9, "Using Word 2003, Excel 2003, and Outlook 2003 with SharePoint Technologies," the section "Sharing Contacts Between Outlook 2003 and SharePoint 2003" covers the process of importing contacts from Outlook 2003, as well as the process of exporting them to Outlook 2003.

Adding Contacts to a Contacts List

The process of adding contacts is simple:

1.

From within the contacts list, click on New Item.

2.

Enter the appropriate information, which by default allows for a number of different areas of information from name to phone numbers, address, web pages, and notes. These fields can be changed through Modify Settings and Columns.

3.

Click on Attach File if you want to add a resume or similar file.

4.

Click on Save and Close when the information is complete.

Figure 12.24 shows a sample contacts list, which has a view titled Home Page View (circled) designed to show only certain items of information on the Home page: last name, company, and business phone. This conserves space on the Home page when this view is applied to the List View on the Home page.

Figure 12.24. Contacts list Home Page View.


Contacts lists are a perfect example of a list where the permissions might be locked down (access Modify Settings and Columns, Change Permissions for This List) so that all users can view the contact information, but only the HR group (perhaps a group already created in Active Directory) can view, insert, edit, and delete items. Perhaps members of the Sales group have the right to view, add, and edit items but not delete them.

Adding a Contacts List to a Portal Area

The process of adding a contacts list to a portal area is straightforward:

1.

Click on Edit Page in the Actions menu.

2.

Select Modify Shared Page, Add Web Parts, and browse and drag the appropriate contacts list to the appropriate zone on the page. Close the Web Parts browse pane by clicking the "x" in the upper right-hand corner.

Figure 12.25 shows the News area where the contacts list was added. It only has one contact in it, and the Toolbar Type was changed to No Toolbar (select Modify Shared Page, Modify Shared Web Parts, News Area Contacts; change Toolbar Type to No Toolbar; click OK).

Figure 12.25. News area with contacts list added.


NOTE

A powerful option available on the portal but not on a Windows SharePoint Services site is the ability to determine which audiences can view a Web Part in the area. If you click on Edit Page, click on the down arrow in the title bar, select Modify Shared Web Part, and expand the Advanced section of the Modify Shared Web Part pane, you'll see a button under Select Audience marked Select. If this button is clicked, you can choose which audiences see the Web Part. This is an excellent way to fine-tune the behavior of the area to show only information to specific users. For example, members of the Managers audience might see a different contacts list than members of the IT Administrators group.





Microsoft SharePoint 2003 Unleashed
Microsoft SharePoint 2003 Unleashed (2nd Edition) (Unleashed)
ISBN: 0672328038
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 288

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net