Outlook 2007 Contact Group - What is it for??

  • Thread starter Thread starter Richard Coltrane
  • Start date Start date
R

Richard Coltrane

Hello,

In Ooutlook 2007 there is the accordian type control on the left hand side
of outlook program window. It has things like mail, contact, calenar tabs
etc. When i expand the contact panel I get a panel that allow me to add
"Groups". So if i add a group I can rename it, remove etc but I dont know
what they are for??? I thought the y were containers for contacts but i cant
drag a contact onto them. So my question is what are they for?? And how do i
create a container for contacts from a given company? I kn ow how to create
inbox folders etc but what about the actual contacts cards??

Thanks

Richard
 
I would also love to hear the answer to this question. I have searched and
found several other posts that has asked this questions, but there never
really has been a satisfactory answer that I can understand. I all ready
have separate folders under my main contacts, but I still don't understand
what this "new group" things is for. I made a new one called personal, but I
don't see any way to do anything with it. I am using Outlook 2007. Thanks.
 
Explanation as found in the <Outlook '2007 Help file> by simply searching
for the term "Groups" (my abbreviated explanation: allows you to group
various folders together for easy and quick access to suit your personal
working environment)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Working with shortcuts and shortcut groups

Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 provides shortcuts in the Navigation Pane
(Navigation Pane: The column on the left side of the Outlook window that
includes panes such as Shortcuts or Mail and the shortcuts or folders within
each pane. Click a folder to show the items in the folder.) for quick access
to your folders. Shortcuts consist of an icon and a name. Examples include
Inbox, Calendar, Contacts, and Deleted Items.

Note You can see all the available shortcuts in the Folder List (Folder
List: Displays the folders available in your mailbox. To view subfolders,
click the plus sign (+) next to the folder. If the Folder List is not
visible, on the Go menu, click Folder List.) view in the Navigation Pane. On
the Go menu, click Folder List.

You can organize shortcuts into groups and arrange the shortcut groups
(shortcut group: One of the groups of shortcuts to folders that can be
displayed in the Shortcuts pane.) in the Shortcuts view (view: Views give
you different ways to look at the same information in a folder by putting it
in different arrangements and formats. There are standard views for each
folder. You can also create custom views.) of the Navigation Pane so that
they are available when you switch between any of the Outlook folders, such
as Mail, Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Karl
___________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer 1.3 / DataPorter 2.0 / Exporter
"Power contact importers/exporters for MS Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com
 
Thanks for your reply, but this still doesn't really answer my
question...sorry. I have looked in the help file, numerous times, but can't
seem to find what I am looking for there. If I am not misunderstanding
Richard's question, I think he is asking the same thing I am. When I click
"contacts", there is a line that says "My Contacts" and then under that are
the folders that I have made to group different e-mail addresses. Directly
under my last folder I added a group which I call "personal". So, there it
is, but I still don't understand what can be done with it. I did as you and
the help file suggested and went to the shortcuts, but I see nothing there
showing the "personal" group which I made. Under shortcuts it just says add
a new group or add a new shortcut. I don't want a new group nor do I have
any use for a shortcut. I just want to understand what the purpose of making
a new group under the contacts area is for when the only options that I can
see that I can do with it is rename, remove, make another new group, or move
up in the list. (those options are found by right clicking in the "personal"
group which I made.)
 
Consider the "Navigation Pane" as a container of "Master Groups" - Contacts
/ Mail / Tasks etc in which every related folder is listed.

Within each of these groups you can create your own group in addition to the
"default" group presented (in the case of Contacts - default is "My
Contacts" where every contact folder in every PST within the profile is
listed. For those with one (or a very few contact folders), the value of
creating new groups is probably questionable.

On the other hand, one scenario where defining new groups could be very
handy, is when a very large number of folders exist and you want to "group"
them for easier reference. One such case would be our test systems where
more then 200+ contact folders exist across more than 25+ PST files/Exch
stores and specific folders are used for different test cases. A new group
could be created to contain the relevant folders for different scenarios -
saving having to search for each of these individual folders in the full
list.

Q. How does one add a contact folder to one of these new groups?
A. Drag 'n Drop (from one "group" list to another)

Q. What does one have to do before deleting one of these "Groups" that
contains folders.
A. Move the folders back to another group (i.e. My Contacts as an example)
else all folders within the group will be deleted when you delete the group
(unless of course you also want to get rid of the folders contained within
the group).

Q. What happens if one accidently deletes a group that still contains
folders and didn't want to delete the folders?
A. First - to get to this point, one would have to ignore a very obvious
warning message but if it is ignored, deleted items can be retrieved from
the "deleted items" folder.

Back to your specific example - drag all contact folders that contain
"Personal" contacts to the "Personal" group you created and you have the
related folders all listed together under one "group".

Karl
___________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer 1.3 / DataPorter 2.0 / Exporter
"Power contact importers/exporters for MS Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com
 
New group is the option to add new contact folders there
as you create sub folder or a new folder for the default contact
folder , just as you have my contact you can create a new group and add
contacts there
 
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