Using Views


When you have a large number of contacts, using views to limit the contacts that are visible is often necessary to find and manage your contacts. The things you can use views for include

  • Selecting contacts for mail merge

  • Changing some contact fields

  • Limiting the display to contacts that meet specific conditions

  • Controlling the layout for printed lists

The default views include

  • Address Card A card layout that displays basic contact data, including all address and phone numbers .

  • Detailed Address Card A card layout that displays all fields.

  • Phone List A table layout that includes phone numbers.

  • By Company Groups contacts by company.

  • By Category Groups contacts by category.

  • By Location Groups contacts by country as selected in the Address field. Click on the Business, Home, or Other button to see the C o untry/Region selector.

  • By Follow-Up Flag Groups contacts by Flagged, Completed, and (none).

All these views have in- cell editing enabled, allowing you to make changes to visible fields without opening the contact for editing. In most cases, when you group contacts by a field, you can drag contacts to other groups to change that field for the contact. This is helpful when you need to change a field used by many contacts, such as for company name changes or when you're categorizing contacts.

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Create a view that has all the fields you want included in a printed list, select File, Print, and choose a table style printout. The printout will include the fields shown on the screen.


The default views are customizable or you create custom views. To change the current view, right-click on the row containing the field names . Depending on your view, choose C ustomize Current View or Custom to open the Customize View dialog.

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See "Creating Custom Views" in Hour 3 for more information about creating custom views.


Task: Change Contact Data Using Views

Making changes to multiple records can seem like a daunting task, but depending on the field that must be changed, Outlook might be able to make the changes for you.

For example, one of your major customers recently merged with another company and you need to change the company name in many records. Changing each record individually could take hours or it can take just minutes.

  1. Apply the Group By Company view to your Contacts folder, selecting it from the Current View command on the Advanced toolbar. Collapse the groups using the V iews, E x pand/Collapse Groups, Co l lapse All Groups menu selection to make it easier to see all the company names (see Figure 10.7).

    Figure 10.7. Use Group By views to change fields without typing. Although Outlook includes some Group By views, you can drag most fields to the Group By box to group by most fields.

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    Not all fields support grouping or can be updated by dragging to a new group. Outlook will return an error if the field doesn't support grouping.


  2. Change the company name on one contact if a contact does not exist for the new company.

  3. Select all the records for the old company and drag the records to the new company's group.

  4. Drop the contacts on the new company's group when you see a ScreenTip display Change Company to [ new name ].

You can use this method to change many fields, including Category, Job Title, and Private fields, not only on contacts, but also Tasks, Journal, and Calendar. It won't work with all fields, such as phone number fields.

To use grouping to change fields that don't have a Group By view, create a new view and group by the field you want to change. You can change any view to a Group By view by right-clicking on the row of field names and choosing Show Group By Box. Drag the field you want to group by the Group By box.

Task: Import and Export Contacts

One of the easiest ways to move contacts between users is using the Import and Export menu.

  1. Use F ile, Impor t and Export to open the Import and Export Wizard.

  2. Choose Import from Another Program or File.

  3. Select Personal Folder File (.pst).

  4. Browse to find the personal folder you want to import. When you import records, you have the option to replace duplicates, allow duplicates to be created, or don't import items that are duplicates (see Figure 10.8). Outlook's capability to determine what is a duplicate often leaves much to be desired, so I usually allow duplicates and delete them later.

    Figure 10.8. Use the Import/Export Wizard to import contacts to your current message store.

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  5. Select the folder from which you want to import (see Figure 10.9). Add a check to the Include Subfolders box if you also want to import subfolders .

    Figure 10.9. Choose between importing items into the current folder or into the same folder in a message store. When you choose to use the same folder, Outlook will create a new folder if one doesn't already exist.

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  6. Set up a filter if you want to limit the items that are imported. The Filter dialog uses the same criteria used with views, Advanced Find, and Search Folders.

Click Finish when you're ready to import the items. Exporting items from Outlook to a PST file works in much the same manner, except it exports the items rather than importing them.

Import and Export supports a variety of file formats, including CSV, tab-delimited text, and Excel format. Exporting to Excel is useful when you need to edit a large number of records.

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When you use F ile, Impor t and Export to copy items into your mailbox, the links between contacts and associated items are broken. This prevents associated items from showing on the Activities tab. Although you can restore the associations, it requires less effort to move items between message stores than it does to import and export and then repair the associations.

Move items or folders by opening the PST using F ile, O pen, Outlook Data F ile. Select a folder, right-click, and choose Mo v e Folder. To move items in the default folders, select the items to move, right-click and M ove to Folder, selecting the new folder from the folder picker.


Task: Create a Distribution List

When you send a message to a group of users, you can create a distribution list (DL) and enter the name of the DL in the address field instead of selecting each contact individually.

  1. Use the N ew, Distribution L ist menu selection to open a new distribution list form (see Figure 10.10). You can also use Ctrl+Shift+L to open a new form.

    Figure 10.10. The distribution list form includes few fields. Choose Select M embers to add existing contacts to the DL, or click the A d d button to add members who aren't already in your Contacts folder.

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  2. Enter a n ame for your distribution list. Although it's helpful to have a long, descriptive name, a shorter name is easier to type when you're addressing messages.

  3. Choose the Select M embers button to open the Select Members address picker dialog. You must use this dialog to address members; you can't drag contacts to the DL form.

  4. Select the contacts you want added to the DL. A contact is listed for each valid electronic address listed. Click the Members button to add the names to the DL list (see Figure 10.11). When you're finished selecting members, click OK.

    Figure 10.11. Select more than one name at a time by holding down the Shift or Ctrl key as you select names or by double-clicking on a name to add it to the Members field.

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  5. If you want to add an email address to the DL without first creating a contact record, choose the A d d New button. Add a check to A dd to Contacts Dialog to create a contact record.

Save the distribution list when you're finished adding addresses to it. To use it, type the DL name or part of the name in the To, CC, or BCC field of a message. If you'd like to see all the individual names, click on the plus sign beside the DL name (see Figure 10.12).

Figure 10.12. Expand the distribution list when you want to remove someone from the mailing temporarily, such as if you're planning a surprise party for them.

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When a contact changes her email address, the DL isn't automatically updated with the new address. You must open the distribution list form and choose the Update Now button. When you choose the Update No w button, any changed addresses are updated. When a contact is missing, you can choose to remove, ignore, or repair the missing member's record by trying to match to an existing contact (see Figure 10.13).

Figure 10.13. Choose the Update Now button to update the distribution list with your contacts.

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Many times it's better to send group mail by assigning categories to your contacts than by using the Group By Category view. Select the category's group header and then use the A ctions, New Message to Contact menu selection. The benefits of using this method are that the list is dynamic, the addresses are always current, and deleting a member is as easy as removing it from the category. This method works well for mailing lists where the distribution list membership is always changing.

Using this method, it's more difficult to add members to any message and to add them to the CC or BCC fields. You can choose Select All and cut the addresses from the To field and paste them in another field.

The benefits of using a real distribution list are that it's easier to put the DL in the CC or BCC field, and you can begin the message from any folder or add them to a reply. When the list membership is stable, it works very well.




Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
ISBN: 0672325543
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 228

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