Hey Folks,
We have a couple of administrative assistants who normally maintain Outlook 2010 Contact Groups in their Contact List / Address Book.
When adding members to a Contact Group you get the drop down showing 3 choices (Fig 1):
1) From Outlook Contacts (Pick from users Outlook Contacts)
2) From Address Book (Pick from Address book which can show Outlook Contacts and Exchange GAB)
3) New Email Contact (Appears to just key in a smtp email address and not stored in Outlook Contacts... unless you tell it to do so)
![Inline image 3]()
Fig 1
Now I have found in most cases the user has clicked From Outlook Contacts, but sometimes they have clickedNew Email Contact and didn't let it create a contact in the contact list. So basically you have aContact Group with a mixture of contact types. You can see the difference in the icon as theOutlook Contact will look like a Rolodex card with a person on it and the standardEmail Contact will look like a Rolodex card, but no person on it (Fig 2)
![Inline image 2]()
Fig 2
So now let's get to the issue. We have a new employee come on board and asks the assistant if they have a list of staff contacts they can send them. So she will do the following:
1) She will forward the Contact Group or email an Outlook Item (attaching theContact Group) to the user.
The user will get the email with the attachment and he can drag it over to his contacts folder and now he will see the newContact Group in his Contacts folder.
HOWEVER if he attempts to email to that group he will get an error stating: "An Internal support function returned an error".
Now I know this error is because he does NOT have any of the Outlook Contacts that are in theContact Group in his Contact Folder. The original user did, but not him. Someone once said they though forwarding the Contact Group like this would auto create the Contacts in the destinations Contact folder, but I have never seen that happen.
So now what? If you open up the Contract Group and double-click on one of the memberOutlook Contacts you get the error: "Could not find Contact ??????. It may have been deleted or moved from its original location. Would you like to remove it from the list?" This just confirms to me the reason for the earlier error mentioned.
Now the user could click the Update Now button in the Contact Group and tell it to "Try to repair the lost members and remove only those that cannot be resolved". This will convert them all to standard Email Contacts and then the user can use the Contact Group. The user could also when sending an email expand the group by clicking the plus which will expand them into individual emails and let the user send.
BUT... the ultimate questions:
1) HOW can a user send a Contact Group to another user where that user can use the Contact Group just like the original user did??? I tried exporting the contacts to a pst and then importing them to the destination user, but it is seen as a different contact so when you try to open the Outlook Contact from the Contact Group they still get the error about not finding contact. I also tried forwarding the contacts individually first to the user and then the group, but it still gives the errors. So how the heck do people do this???
2) Since trying to forward or email a Contact Group to other users on Exchange appears problematic HOW do you recommend making sure our users all have the same Contact Groups? What are some of the things you do? Here are some things that come to mind, but don't know what is considered the defacto accepted standard:
We have a couple of administrative assistants who normally maintain Outlook 2010 Contact Groups in their Contact List / Address Book.
When adding members to a Contact Group you get the drop down showing 3 choices (Fig 1):
1) From Outlook Contacts (Pick from users Outlook Contacts)
2) From Address Book (Pick from Address book which can show Outlook Contacts and Exchange GAB)
3) New Email Contact (Appears to just key in a smtp email address and not stored in Outlook Contacts... unless you tell it to do so)
Fig 1
Now I have found in most cases the user has clicked From Outlook Contacts, but sometimes they have clickedNew Email Contact and didn't let it create a contact in the contact list. So basically you have aContact Group with a mixture of contact types. You can see the difference in the icon as theOutlook Contact will look like a Rolodex card with a person on it and the standardEmail Contact will look like a Rolodex card, but no person on it (Fig 2)
Fig 2
So now let's get to the issue. We have a new employee come on board and asks the assistant if they have a list of staff contacts they can send them. So she will do the following:
1) She will forward the Contact Group or email an Outlook Item (attaching theContact Group) to the user.
The user will get the email with the attachment and he can drag it over to his contacts folder and now he will see the newContact Group in his Contacts folder.
HOWEVER if he attempts to email to that group he will get an error stating: "An Internal support function returned an error".
Now I know this error is because he does NOT have any of the Outlook Contacts that are in theContact Group in his Contact Folder. The original user did, but not him. Someone once said they though forwarding the Contact Group like this would auto create the Contacts in the destinations Contact folder, but I have never seen that happen.
So now what? If you open up the Contract Group and double-click on one of the memberOutlook Contacts you get the error: "Could not find Contact ??????. It may have been deleted or moved from its original location. Would you like to remove it from the list?" This just confirms to me the reason for the earlier error mentioned.
Now the user could click the Update Now button in the Contact Group and tell it to "Try to repair the lost members and remove only those that cannot be resolved". This will convert them all to standard Email Contacts and then the user can use the Contact Group. The user could also when sending an email expand the group by clicking the plus which will expand them into individual emails and let the user send.
BUT... the ultimate questions:
1) HOW can a user send a Contact Group to another user where that user can use the Contact Group just like the original user did??? I tried exporting the contacts to a pst and then importing them to the destination user, but it is seen as a different contact so when you try to open the Outlook Contact from the Contact Group they still get the error about not finding contact. I also tried forwarding the contacts individually first to the user and then the group, but it still gives the errors. So how the heck do people do this???
2) Since trying to forward or email a Contact Group to other users on Exchange appears problematic HOW do you recommend making sure our users all have the same Contact Groups? What are some of the things you do? Here are some things that come to mind, but don't know what is considered the defacto accepted standard:
- I see a share contacts feature in Outlook 2010.
- There are public folders, but my understanding there is no Microsoft roadmap to continue public folders.
- I know an administrator could create AD Distribution Group, but if some of the contacts needed in the group are NOT AD users then you have to create all these Exchange mail contacts.
- Someone mentioned Outlook Business Contacts Add In product.
We are really struggling with what we should be doing here and would love some advise.
Thanks in advance,
Greg