Basics

Microsoft Office Outlook is truly a one stop shop for everything dealing schedule/time management, and one of the key aspects of both is keeping track of contacts that are associated with those schedules.  This article will assist with creating contacts, distribution lists, and configuring advanced contact settings.

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New ContactAfter clicking new on the top left corner of the screen once you are in the contact interface, you will see the following window.

1. Main contact information
• Stores basic contact information including name, company, email, website, and IM address.
• Can store more advanced information for calling through your computer if you have it configured
  You must have Outlook configured for calling through the computer properly before you attempt to add phone numbers.  Otherwise an infinite loop may crash Outlook
2. Associated Image - an image can be associate with the contact.  When this is configured an image will show up next to the contact information in the main Outlook window.
3. Notes - anything that a field does not already exist for, can be put into the notes section of the contact
4. Communication Settings - if outlook is configured for calling over the computer system, then this group of commands is what you will use.
5. Insert Tab - Allows you to associate a business card/file to the individual contact.  This can also insert rich media into the Notes section of the contact.

When everything has been configured, simply click Save and all settings will be saved into your addressbook.

Address Book Throughout all of outlook whether it is involving mail, calendar, contacts, tasks, or notes, you can always click on the address book icon to open the address book.  Through this window you are able to see your contacts for your account and also through the Global Address Book.  To select which address book you wish to search, simply click on the down arrow in the highlighted portion of the screen below.
Distribution ListsDistribution Lists provide a more efficient way of sending emails to groups of contacts.  A distribution list is composed of numerous email contacts; the contacts do not have to be in the address book to be added to the distribution list.

Create a Distribution List

1. Click on the Arrow of the New button at the top left of the screen
2. In the menu that appears, click Distribution List

Give the distribution list a meaningful title as the title is the easy shortcut to access that list when composing an email.

Adding a contact to a Distribution List
Their are two ways of adding a new member to the Address Book.  The first being Select Members, which allows you to select contacts already listed in the address book.  The second being Add New, through this feature you will see the window below.  In the window, you have the option of adding a non-address book contact to the distribution list.  Along with adding the contact to the distribution list, you can also click Add to Contacts to add the new contact to the address book.