How to use Outlook Public Folders to manage contacts

1. Introduction

Get started

In order for you to insert contacts from public folders into an email, you’ll first need to add the public folder to your list of address books.

Then you’ll need to know how to add contacts from the newly added address book to an email.

In order to manage the contacts, you’ll also need to know how to create, update, and delete contacts.

You’ll also need to know how to create a new subfolder in case you want to organize your contacts more.

Background: How AD4 implements public folders

Since we at AD4 share an email system with the rest of the NY Unified Court System, we have been given a “master” Public Folder that we can create subfolders under.

TSU is the administrator of this public folder, so we can do anything we want with the AD4 public folder, but we’ve decided to create Address Books folders for each department.

 

Generally, each department has been granted full read/write access to their own address book.

This means that each department can decide how they want to organize their contacts.

 

_{The terminology can be confusing, but any folder created under the AD4 public folder is a subfolder.}

_{For example, “AFC Address Book” is a subfolder of the AD4 public folder. Any folders created in this address book will then become subfolders of “AFC Address Book”.}

_{Folders can contain many things, but we only use them to store contacts.}

Open

AD4 Public Folder

2. Instructions

2.1. IMPORTANT: How to add a public folder to YOUR list of address books

1	Open Outlook and navigate to the Folders tab.	Open Outlook Tabs
2	Find the Public Folders option in the list of folders.	Open Public Folders in the List (some parts redacted)
3	Locate the address book that you want to add. Our public folder is named “AD4” - so the address book you want will be in this folder. In our example, we will be working with the “TSU Demo” address book.
4	Right click on the address book and click “Properties”	Open Address Book Properties (some parts redacted)
5	Switch to the “Outlook Address Book” tab and check “Show this folder as an email Address Book”	Open Checkbox “Show this folder as an email address book”
6	Hit OK.

2.2. How to send an email to contacts in a public folder

1	Prerequisite: You must complete the following procedure before you can send an email to contacts in a public folder. How to add a public folder to your list of address books
2	Create a new email in Outlook or open an existing Draft.
3	Click on the field you want to add the contact to.	Open Clicking on the field
4	Open the address book dropdown, and select the address book the contact is in.	Open Selecting the address book (some parts redacted) Open Address book selected
5	Double click the contact to add them to the field.	Open Double clicking the contact
6	Hit OK
7	Repeat steps 2-6 until you have all of the contacts added to your email.
8	Note: Once you have added a contact to an email once, Outlook will save that contact as a suggestion so that when you start typing their name it automatically pops up.

2.3. How to create a contact in a Public Folder

1	Navigate to the Folders tab in Outlook.
2	Open the public folder you want to add contacts to.	Open Selecting the public folder you want to create a contact in (some parts redacted)
3	Click “New Contact” in the top bar.
4	Once you’re done creating the contact, hit “Save and Close”	Open Hitting save and close after editing a contact

2.4. How to update a contact in a Public Folder

1	Navigate to the Folders tab in Outlook.
2	Open the public folder that the contact resides in.	Open Selecting the public folder you want to update a contact in (some parts redacted)
3	Click Edit Contact.	Open Right clicking the contact to edit (some parts redacted)
4	Once you’re done Editing the contact, hit Save and Close.	Open Hitting save and close after editing a contact

2.5. How to delete a contact in a Public Folder

Make sure you are sure you want to delete a contact before deleting it.

1	Navigate to the Folders tab in Outlook.
2	Open the public folder that the contact resides in.	Open Selecting the public folder you want to delete a contact from (some parts redacted)
3	Right click the contact you want to delete, then click the Delete option.	Open Deleting a contact

2.6. How to create a new subfolder

If you need to create a new subfolder under your department’s public folder to better organize contacts, you can easily do so.

1	Navigate to the the Folders tab in Outlook
2	Locate the folder you want to create the subfolder under in the navigation.	Open Selecting the public folder you want to create a subfolder under (some parts redacted)
3	Right click the folder, and click New Folder	Open Clicking “new folder” while having a folder selected.
4	Name the folder, and make sure the “Folder Contains” dropdown is set to Contact Items.	Open Subfolder options
5	Hit OK.
6	The newly created subfolder will have the same permissions as the folder you created the folder underneath.

3. FAQ

What is the difference between a contact group and a contact? I see both in my public folder.

• A contact group, also known as a distribution list, is a type of item similar to a Contact.

  • A contact group houses one or more contacts with email addresses, and can be added to or removed from.

  • Contact groups are convenient because you can send an email to multiple people just by adding the contact group to the To/CC/BCC fields.

• A Contact in Outlook is an entry used to store information about people and organizations you communicate with.

  • A contact can only have one email address associated with it.

What happens when I expand a contact group when sending an email? Does it affect whether it’s received or not?

• When you add a contact group to the To/CC/BCC fields when sending an email, you will initially see the name of the contact group in the field.

  • You can opt to expand it by clicking the + button.

  • Expanding the contact group does not affect how the email is received.

  • Expanding the contact group only changes the view on your end – instead of seeing the name of the contact group, you will see the individual email addresses of each contact in that contact group.

    • Recipients will see the individual email addresses regardless of whether you expand the contact group or not (unless you add the group to BCC).