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.