What is the difference between "groups" and "distribution lists?"

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Guest

In Outlook 2007, the navigation pane has an option under Current View called
"Add new group." Once you make a Group and name it . . . what else can be
done? I can find no options for adding members from the contact list. How
do you populate this group? What can you do with the group after you do
(magically) add members?

I would like to find a feature that will allow me to take various Contacts
and sort them into lists of His Family, Her Family, College Friends, etc. If
Groups isn't the way, then how can this be done? A Distribution List seems
limited to emailing only. I want to manage all my contacts and a great many
of them do not have email.

Danelle in Kansas
 
Navigation pane groups give you a little bit of functionality for organizing folders, not items. They have no connection whatsoever with distribution lists. The feature that does what you describe is Outlook categories.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
http://www.outlookcode.com/article.aspx?id=54
 
Start your post by specifying to which view of Outlook 2007 you are
referring. There is no way we could possible know that.
 
"functionality for organizing folders, not items" Thanks, that makes it much
clearer. It also explains why the option to Add New Group appears in the
Navigation Pane whether you are working with Mail, Contacts, etc.

I'll keep reading up on Categories . . . still not sure how to grab the data
I want.

Danelle in Kansas
Using Outlook for the first time
 
Just to clarify, I specifically posted in the Contacts discussion group, and
my question was about making groups from Contacts. Do you have any advice
regarding my orginal questions?

Danelle in Kansas,
Using Outlook for the first time, 2 weeks and counting . . .

Russ Valentine said:
Start your post by specifying to which view of Outlook 2007 you are
referring. There is no way we could possible know that.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
Danelle in Kansas said:
In Outlook 2007, the navigation pane has an option under Current View
called
"Add new group." Once you make a Group and name it . . . what else can be
done? I can find no options for adding members from the contact list.
How
do you populate this group? What can you do with the group after you do
(magically) add members?

I would like to find a feature that will allow me to take various Contacts
and sort them into lists of His Family, Her Family, College Friends, etc.
If
Groups isn't the way, then how can this be done? A Distribution List
seems
limited to emailing only. I want to manage all my contacts and a great
many
of them do not have email.

Danelle in Kansas
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
In the Contacts view, this option provides the only the ability to create
separate Contact Folders. If that is not what you want to do, then figure
out what you do want to do. Look into creating Distribution Lists or
Categories, whichever suits you best. The Help files are your friend.

--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
Danelle in Kansas said:
Just to clarify, I specifically posted in the Contacts discussion group,
and
my question was about making groups from Contacts. Do you have any advice
regarding my orginal questions?

Danelle in Kansas,
Using Outlook for the first time, 2 weeks and counting . . .

Russ Valentine said:
Start your post by specifying to which view of Outlook 2007 you are
referring. There is no way we could possible know that.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
in
message news:[email protected]...
In Outlook 2007, the navigation pane has an option under Current View
called
"Add new group." Once you make a Group and name it . . . what else can
be
done? I can find no options for adding members from the contact list.
How
do you populate this group? What can you do with the group after you
do
(magically) add members?

I would like to find a feature that will allow me to take various
Contacts
and sort them into lists of His Family, Her Family, College Friends,
etc.
If
Groups isn't the way, then how can this be done? A Distribution List
seems
limited to emailing only. I want to manage all my contacts and a great
many
of them do not have email.

Danelle in Kansas
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
have a look at the articles here for some ideas on Categories and Grouping
www.judygleeson.com


I hope this helps you at least a little bit!

Judy Gleeson
MVP Outlook
Outlook trainer and author of Productiv_IT with Outlook

www.acorntraining.com.au
Canberra, Australia

Joseph Joubert
To teach is to learn twice.
Russ Valentine said:
In the Contacts view, this option provides the only the ability to create
separate Contact Folders. If that is not what you want to do, then figure
out what you do want to do. Look into creating Distribution Lists or
Categories, whichever suits you best. The Help files are your friend.

--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
Danelle in Kansas said:
Just to clarify, I specifically posted in the Contacts discussion group,
and
my question was about making groups from Contacts. Do you have any
advice
regarding my orginal questions?

Danelle in Kansas,
Using Outlook for the first time, 2 weeks and counting . . .

Russ Valentine said:
Start your post by specifying to which view of Outlook 2007 you are
referring. There is no way we could possible know that.
--
Russ Valentine
[MVP-Outlook]
in
message In Outlook 2007, the navigation pane has an option under Current View
called
"Add new group." Once you make a Group and name it . . . what else
can be
done? I can find no options for adding members from the contact list.
How
do you populate this group? What can you do with the group after you
do
(magically) add members?

I would like to find a feature that will allow me to take various
Contacts
and sort them into lists of His Family, Her Family, College Friends,
etc.
If
Groups isn't the way, then how can this be done? A Distribution List
seems
limited to emailing only. I want to manage all my contacts and a
great
many
of them do not have email.

Danelle in Kansas
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Perhaps a few specifics would be helpful.

--I have entered each of our family and friends into Contacts and
categorized them; many have more than one category, such as HisFamily,
NMFriends, and Suisse.

--Our son is graduating this summer. I made a new category, Graduation, and
marked the appropriate contacts. Please note: this data will be used for
addressing invitations, calculating foreign postage, tracking gifts and
writing thank-you notes; a Distribution List will not serve the purpose.

--I need to print a listing of all contacts in the Graduation category, and
I want this list sorted by the other categories associated with each contact.
(So Grandma Mary and Aunt Susie are in the same section of the Graduation
List.)

--Starting with Contacts/CurrentView/ByCategory I see the listing of all
contacts contained in the Graduation category. Using CustomizeCurrentView,
the Sort command seems to offer hope of acheiving my goal. However,
Sort/SortItemsBy options are restricted to a drop-down menu that does NOT
contain Categories as an option.

I can see the potential power of Categories--I just can't find the proper
tools to use that power.

Danelle in Kansas
 
You can't sort by categories because an item can have multiple categories. Instead, you group by categories as you've already seen. You can also filter a view by categories so that you see only the Graduation category items, for example.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
http://www.outlookcode.com/article.aspx?id=54
 
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