Details Tab: Keeping Track of the Small Stuff

As with the General tab, it isn't necessary to fill out all of the fields on the Details tab. For that matter, you don't even need to use the Details tab. However, if you'd like to add a personal touch to your phone calls, this can really impress your customers. For example, on your next call you might ask, "Isn't your anniversary next week? Are you and Mike doing anything special?"

Activities Tab: Contacts with Your Contacts

By clicking the third tab in the Contact entry form, you can display information about activities conducted with your contacts. Once you delete an email item and empty it from Deleted Items, it will no longer show up in the Activities tab.

Certificates Tab: May We See Some ID, Please?

Certificates (also called digital IDs) are files that are issued by a certified security authority, such as VeriSign, or by your administrator. These certificates are used to send security- related information over the Internet. In order for the certificates to work, both the sender and the receiver must have a valid and current certificate (certificates have expiration dates). Even so, you can still decrypt messages sent to us after your certificate has expired . You can learn more about digital certificates at http://www.verisign.com, VeriSign's Web site.

All Fields Tab: Seeing the Whole Picture

The final tab on the Contacts form is All Fields. On this tab, you can choose the fields you want to view from a drop-down list. The different fields and their corresponding entries are shown in a table format. You can enter information about a contact in this window, and you can select fields and copy information as well. When you copy cells from this view and paste them into a Word document, for example, the information is separated by tabs.

You can also use the All Fields tab to create new fields for a contact. Click the button marked New at the bottom-left corner of the form. Before you create a new field, remember that Outlook already offers four user fields that you can customize to meet your needs. View these user fields by choosing Miscellaneous fields from the drop-down list. Although you can add any information to the four user fields, you can't change their names or properties.