What Happened to the Contact Linking Text Box in Outlook 2007?

Outlook 2003 would automatically link an email to a contact so that you could see all emails, both sent and received, in the Activities tab of that contact. In fact, this feature was not limited to just emails. Outlook can link all new items that you created in the lower left-hand corner of new item forms, a contact field that would link that contact to the item–an appointment, task, journal entry…whatever. By being diligent in adding this contact for all new items you would have a running log of all transactions about that contact…and you could even group, sort and view all of those records in the same Activities tab for that contact. That way, you had a valuable running history of all activities between you and that contact.But now, in Outlook 2007, when you open a contact in you’ll notice something is missing–The Contact Links text box on the item screens–an Appointment, Meeting, Task, Journal and Contact form–all show WITHOUT that link.Well Microsoft did not really leave it out, they just turned it off, by default (I know not why).

Here’s how to turn it back on.

From the menu go to Tools, Options, then Contact Options. Check the box called “Show Contact Linking on all Forms”.

Now when you go to create a new item you’ll find the Contact link text box at the bottom.

Here’s a couple other things you should know to help you:

You only need to type part of the name in that text box and press Control-S (for Save). If Outlook found the contact it will fill the full name in for you and underline it signaling that it found the contact in the database. If it finds ambiguities it will prompt you with a Choose Contact box–and you can select from that.

Here’s another great use of contact linking. If you know multiple people at one company you could create a contact by that company’s name and then link all the contacts to it. Then, since those contacts are linked to their transactions, ALL of the transactions for all of those individuals for that company are now linked in as well. You can group, sort and change views of all of those transactions—say, sorted by date, or grouped by person and then sorted by date. These views are extremely flexible.

One final note about using names in the contact link box. To keep the list smaller and if you are not sure of the spelling, type only a few letters of the person’s LAST name rather than the first.

Opinion: Your Virus Protection (VP)

I’ve been using TrendMicro for about 2 years now and although I’ve had many “threats”, Trend Micro has caught all of them and generally leaves me alone. I can’t say the same about Norton and McAfee. And I’m talking about VIRUSES, not Trojans–the two are quite different but both just as deadly as the other.

My first statement about all virus checkers is, however, you get what you pay for. For those that become distraught for having their system destroyed because they were unwilling to pay the piper up front to keep themselves protected properly–I’m not sympathetic. One can’t complain because something is free–that’s just bad karma.

Second, many people aren’t active on the web so they don’t visit many places, so they don’t bump into a virus-by-visitation. So, their assumption is that their virus protection is good. NOT TRUE.

Third, here’s what to consider when purchasing your virus protection software (and if you don’t have it at all times, God bless you as you are going to need divine intervention).

1. The cost for VP is about $30-$50 per year so invest your hard-earned money gleefully. It takes only one virus to rip the guts out of your computer and hours and hours between support phone calls and or struggling to chase down on the internet how to clean it up. Viruses can also attack your operating system files and unless you know how to intelligently fix THEM (yes I do) without restoring the operating system (or reformatting your hard-drive) you’ll spend more hours then you imagined.

2. Typically you’ll spend between 2-20 hours trying to fix an infection. Hmmm, let me see, my time is worth $15/hr at best case, or $1.50 per hour worst case if I don’t use VP. This should be a no-brainer.

3. Anti-Virus software when running can take up a lot of your time to manage or little. For example, Avast continuously gives a virus warning that is not even configurable to stop it (McAfee is configured by default to display advisories, but at least is configurable to stop them).

4. Norton and McAfee are both resource hogs, and they are always slowing email input and output and constantly updating themselves.

5. Finally Norton is simply bloated, weak, and nearly impossible to remove without a download of addtional software to clean up after itself. I’ve never seen Norton behave well, and it is NOT user-friendly. Maybe they’ve improved their support in the last 3 years. Let me know dear readers.

All VP software interfaces with Outlook. I turn off the outbound email checker but leave ON the inbound virus checking. That’s probably a double-check because many email hosting providers are checking your inbound email for viruses long before they get to you.

I encourage you to add any comments you might have hereto my blog www.softwaremagician.com/blog

Careful Importing Duplicate Contacts in Outlook (2003 & 2007)

Originally I would have thought this was an issue with Outlook 2003, but the “feature” still exists in 2007.

Here’s the short of it.  If you want to add contacts (import contacts) to Outlook from another file, you know these will go into your address book contacts, say, for marketing to them via their first name and email.  But here is something important you should know:

Always select Allow Duplicates to be Created.   Why duplicate contacts? Here’s why.

Your idea of a duplicate and my idea of a duplicate and Outlook’s idea of a duplicate are all different.  You might think that a duplicate is everything the same except a modification date.  I might think that a duplicate is everything except the notes.

If you were importing a file where there was 2 Mary’s and each had their own unique email you and I would agree that these 2 are NOT duplicates.

Surprise!  Outlook will find duplicates based on the same first name and will lose the second (and third) duplicate entries.

That’s why you should always select to allow duplicates.

Interestingly enough when you attempt to import a duplicate, Outlook will recognize you are attempting to import a duplicate and will give you a menu asking which fields you want (Outlook 2007) or if you would like to update or overwrite.

If you have many, you’ll want some easy mechanism to delete duplicate contacts. But you first have to find duplicates. Teamscope.com has a very cool duplicate remover add-in called “Outlook Scrubber”.  It will find duplicates, then help you remove duplicates. I use it and recommend it and it has helped many of my clients.  I’m not an affiliate, but would like still tell ‘em I sent you.

http://www.teamscope.com/otherpro/utilities.asp#scrubber

Paul

How to Convert from Outlook Express to Outlook

Outlook Express (OE) is mostly an email handler and a light contact list. It cannot handle, nor was it ever designed to handle, calendaring, reminders, notes, journals and a whole bunch more that Outlook offers in feature/functionality of contact management. (If you want to compare the two of these, check out the Microsoft Office comparison page that shows how OE compares to OL2003 Outlook vs. Outlook Express.

In Outlook Express.
Check Outlook Express to see how many email accounts you have. Run Outlook Express. (The filename is msimn.exe in Program Files if you don’t find it on your desktop).
From the menu, click on File, Work Offline. This will (until you turn it on again) disable receiving of email in Outlook Express.

Click on Tools, Accounts, Mail Tab and count.

IMPORTANT NOTE: You will need the password for each account before you proceed to the remaining Outlook steps. Call your email hoster if you are unsure. These must exactly match any email
logons you may have with any webmail service you are currently running.

Close Outlook Express.

In Outlook
Run Outlook, click on File, Import/Export from the menu. Then, at the Import/Export Wizard, notice that there are 2 pertainent choices:

• Import Internet Mail Account Settings (do this first)
  This allows you to automatically convert your email Accounts over to Outlook.
  For example, testemail@softwaremagician.com is one account. Click on this heading and click Next.
  • In the Select Internet Mail client wizard box select Microsoft Outlook Express and click Next
  • You will see one or more of your accounts matching those in OE.
  • Select one and click Next
  • You will enter a short wizard giving you the configuration of this account from OE. Change or accept the options (carefully). Notice that the Password is required for each one.
  • Click Next through Finish. The dialog for one email account conversion is complete
  • Test your work. Send yourself an email from within Outlook (by using Ctrl-Shift-M) using this email.
    Click send/receive until you get the email. If you don’t get it, check the settings (you may have to call your email hoster, and they will assist you in setting these up). To get to the Account settings use Tools, Email Accounts, View and click Next. Then double-click on the email account and click on Test Account Settings. You should get check marks for all if the account was converted correctly.
  • Now you get to perform all these steps again beginning with File, Import/Export above for EACH email Account. (I know, I know, Outlook should have made it easier, but they didn’t, so this is what you have to do.)

• Import Internet Mail and Addresses
  Use this to first import first your email, then your Addresses. The option (checkbox) to import
  your Addresses means these will be converted into Outlook Address book (and automatically create Contacts).
  Click on this heading and click Next.
  • Click to highlight Outlook Express 4.x, 5.x, 6.x. Also check Import Mail, Import Address Book. Click Next
  • On the next screen I advise Allow duplicates to be created. You can always isolate them with the creation date if you are already using Outlook and have possible duplicates in your existing contacts.
  • Click Finish and then OK.

If you get the Internet Network Password dialog box check/try one or more of the following:

1) Your service no longer recognizes this email account (is it defunct? Did you cancel it?)
2) The server is incorrect (Did you change or add services? Are you trying to ‘relay’ through another intermediate web service?) Try changing the smtp to your Internet Service Provider, NOT your website
2) The password may be incorrect (did you check it first?)
3) Close Outlook, wait a few seconds, restart, and try Test Account Settings
4) Fully qualify the User Name (e.g. change testemail to testemail@softwaremagician.com).
5) Restart the PC

Final Notes

Because you chose Work Offline in Outlook Express, you won’t be receiving email there even if you run it again. BUT, if the email account is working correctly in both AND the Work Offline is NOT checked, you can literally receive email into both Outlook Express AND Outlook–not a good option. So to fix that, just note that YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO OPEN OUTLOOK EXPRESS AGAIN! You may even consider removing the icon altogether from the Desktop (don’t delete Outlook Express as you may need it sometime later for diagnostics).

Once you have converted to Outlook, you’ll want to know how to exercise all
of it’s amazing features.

Get started now. Unlock the incredible power of Outlook and achieve enormous results–Get FREE reports, FREE videos, and Free Tips and Tricks–Click Here.

Outlook 2007 Search Desktop not indexing Public Folders

I use Hosted Exchange and share my contacts and calendars with my colleague through the Public Folder.

To add a new contact to the Public Folders Contacts you must first click on that folder in the navigation bar (My Favorites), then use Ctrl-Shift-C to add a new contact.

The problem with the Hosted Exchange installation is that by default there is an option for caching/indexing that is NOT set in the Microsoft Exchange Account profile. However, it is easy to set once you know how.

First check that Exchange is in fact being cached. Click on File, Cached Exchange Mode, and check Download Full Items.

Next turn on . Click on Tools, Account Settings. Highlight Microsoft Exchange account. Then click Change. You are now in your Exchange profile settings (Change Email Account). Click More Settings, then the Advanced tab. Check both Use Cached Exchange Mode and Download Public Folder Favorites. You’ll have to restart Outlook for it to begin working.

Outlook and Hosted Exchange will automatically resync and you’ll now be able to find those missing contacts using the Search Desktop feature.

And if you don’t have the Search Desktop feature running, you can find it at

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/desktopsearch/getitnow.mspx

Address Book Disappeared? How to Pull it Back Out of the Hat

There are times when you may need to upgrade your Outlook, move it to a new computer, upgrade to Hosted Exchange, or any number of other tasks, and sometimes your Address Book simply disappears. Worse, you’ll notice that you can no longer use the To: box in a new email (I don’t recommend that anyway–just type the person’s name or part of their name).

In all likelihood the address book is only hiding. Outlook thinks some other address book is to be used.

In many cases you only need to re-point Outlook to the right address book. Here’s how.

1. On the standard toolbar, find the little open address book icon and click on it.

2. Click on Tools, Options in the menu bar.

3. Drop-down the “Show this address list first” and choose the appropriate list. If you see any folder multiple times like”Contacts” simply choose one, then select Properties to see which Contacts folder that one is.

If you need to regenerate the address book from the ground up, see this blog:
“How to Regenerate Missing or Corrupt Address Book“