Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 provides lists that can be used to share a variety of information. One of the defined list types is contacts, which is used to store contact information in a way similar to the Contacts folder in Outlook 2007. Shared contacts work only with SharePoint Services 2.0, not with the latest version of SharePoint (SharePoint Services 3.0).
To view contacts on a Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 site, click Documents And Lists at the top of any Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 page. The contacts lists are in the Lists area of the page. By default, a list named Contacts is created when Windows SharePoint Services is installed; you might have more lists of contacts on your site. Click a contacts list name to view the list, as shown in Figure 40-9. From this list, you can add, edit, and delete contacts. An Item drop-down menu for contacts will be displayed if you hover the mouse pointer over the last name of a specific contact.
If you frequently use contacts in your Windows SharePoint Services team site, it might be a lot of effort to open the team site every time you need a contact. Windows SharePoint Services and Outlook 2007 provide a method of linking a contacts list from Windows SharePoint Services directly into Outlook 2007 so that the contacts in the Windows SharePoint Services site show up as a contacts folder in Outlook 2007. However, contacts lists linked from Windows SharePoint Services into Outlook 2007 cannot be edited; they can only be read. You must add, edit, or delete contacts in a linked folder directly in the SharePoint Server 2.0 site.
To link a contacts list in Windows SharePoint Services into Outlook 2007, open the contacts list, click Actions, and then click Connect To Outlook. Outlook 2007 will start if needed. Microsoft Internet Explorer® displays a message asking whether it is OK to continue; click Yes. The message box shown in Figure 40-10 appears. This message box notifies you that a SharePoint site is attempting to link to Outlook 2007 and that the site is not trusted by default. Verify that the site URL in the message box is correct, and then click Yes.
Figure 40-10. When you attempt to link a SharePoint contacts list to Outlook 2007, a message box appears, allowing you to verify that the SharePoint site is trusted before the link is created.
Note
The message box notifying you that SharePoint is attempting to link to Outlook 2007 appears so that rogue SharePoint sites cannot link into Outlook 2007 without your knowledge or permission.
After you click Yes in this message box, the contacts list is linked into Outlook 2007, as shown in Figure 40-11. You now have two contacts folders in Outlook 2007, Contacts and Team Web Site—Contacts. You can open the new contacts folder linked from Windows SharePoint Services and view contacts, but you cannot add, edit, or delete contacts. (See the section "Copying Contacts from Outlook to Windows SharePoint Services 2.0" later in this chapter for more information.)
Figure 40-11. The new contacts folder linked from Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 is shown in Outlook 2007.
Note
The name in the Team Web Site—Contacts folder preceding the dash is the name of the SharePoint site, and the name following the dash is the name of the contacts list within the SharePoint site. If the name of the linked contacts list in Windows SharePoint Services were Project Contacts, for example, the linked folder in Outlook 2007 would be named Team Web Site—Project Contacts.
Synchronizing contacts from Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 to Outlook 2007 is useful if you need access to an entire contacts list stored in a SharePoint site, but it is also possible to copy contacts from SharePoint to Outlook 2007. This is useful if you need only a few contacts from Windows SharePoint Services in Outlook 2007 for use on a regular basis, or if you need the contacts stored in a single contacts folder in Outlook 2007. Note that if you edit the contact, your changes are not reflected in the Windows SharePoint Services contacts list, as the two copies of the contact are independent. See the next section to learn how to copy the contact back to Windows SharePoint Services.
The process for copying a contact from Windows SharePoint Services to Outlook 2007 is surprisingly simple. Windows SharePoint Services has the ability to export and import contacts to and from contacts lists on a SharePoint site in vCard (.vcf) format. To copy a contact from Windows SharePoint Services to Outlook 2007, follow these steps:
Open the contacts list in the SharePoint site from which you want to copy the contact.
Find the contact you want to copy, hover the mouse pointer over the contact’s last name, click the drop-down arrow, and then click Export Contact.
You will typically see the Internet Explorer File Download dialog box, prompting you to open or save the file. Click Open.
The contact opens in Outlook 2007, as shown in Figure 40-12. Enter any additional information you want saved with the contact in the contact form, and then click Save And Close to save the contact in your Outlook 2007 Contacts folder.
The preceding two sections covered how to get your contacts from Windows SharePoint Services into Outlook 2007, but the ability to move Outlook 2007 contacts into Windows SharePoint Services is just as useful. If you are creating a Web site for your team, for example, and need to get a number of contacts from each team member’s Contacts folder in Outlook 2007 into the Windows SharePoint Services contacts list, using the Import Contacts feature is much easier than adding each contact by hand. To copy contacts from Outlook 2007 to a SharePoint site, follow these steps:
In the SharePoint site, open the contacts list into which you want to import contacts.
Click Import Contacts.
In the Select Users To Import dialog box, shown in Figure 40-13, select the Outlook 2007 contacts folder containing the contact to import in the Show Names From The drop-down list. The Contacts folder is selected by default.
Select a contact in the list, click Add, and then click OK.
When the message box shown in Figure 40-14 is displayed, click Yes to allow access to the Outlook 2007 data. This message box warns you that someone is trying to access your data. If you will be adding more contacts from Outlook 2007, selecting the Allow Access For check box and specifying a time interval in the Select Users To Import dialog box prevents this message box from being displayed again for the length of time selected.
The contact will now be shown in the contacts list in the SharePoint site.