Introduction

Contacts view is the central place for all your contacts in Outlook 2010. Maintaining a detailed contacts list will make sending emails and scheduling meetings that much easier.
In this lesson, you'll learn how to add, manage, and organize your contacts. We'll also talk about how to import contacts.
Outlook 2010 keeps all of your contacts organized in Contacts view. Once you've added contacts to Outlook, you'll use the same contact information to send emails, schedule meetings, and assign tasks. Keeping a detailed contacts list can be especially helpful in the workplace, as you may need to communicate with a lot of different people every day.

• To access Contacts view, locate and select the Contacts View tab in the lower-left corner of the screen. Contacts view will appear.

Adding Contacts

There are two ways to add contacts:

• Manually entering information for each of your contacts.
• Importing existing lists of contacts from other accounts, like Gmail or Hotmail. If you already have a lot of contacts saved with another account, this method can save you a lot of time and effort.

To Add a New Contact Manually:

1. From Contacts view, locate and select the New Contact command on the Ribbon.
2. The Contact dialog box will appear.
3. Enter the contact information. At the very least, you should enter a first and last name, as well as an email address. However, you can also enter other information, like phone numbers, alternate email addresses, and more.
4. When you are finished filling out the contact information, click Save & Close.
5. The contact will be added to your contacts list.

To Import Contacts:

In order to import contacts to Outlook, you must first export those contacts to a file, most commonly a Comma Separated Value file, also known as CSV. Most email applications will provide instructions on how to export your existing contacts. Once you've exported your contacts, you're ready to import them to Outlook.

1. Click the File tab on the Ribbon.
2. Backstage view will appear. Select Open.
3. The Open options will appear. Select Import.
4. The Import and Export Wizard will appear. Follow the instructions to import contacts into Outlook.

Doing More with Contacts

Once you're familiar with the basics of Contacts view, you can start taking advantage of its most helpful features with these additional tips.

To Send an Email to Contact Groups:

Contact groups are especially convenient for sending messages to a group of people, such as a specific team in your workplace.

1. Select the desired contact group and then click the E-mail command on the Ribbon.
2. The Compose window will appear and the contact group will be copied into the To: field. The message will be sent to everyone in the contact group.

To Assign Tasks:

If you want to use Outlook 2010 to manage projects and tasks, you can assign tasks (also known as To-Do's) to your contacts. Your contact will receive a notification about the task and you'll be notified when the task is completed.

1. Click the desired contact, locate and select the More command on the Ribbon and then select Assign Task from the drop-down window.
2. The Task window will appear. Enter a subject as you would for an email message, as well as a due date for the task.
3. When you're finished entering information about the task, click Send.

To Print Contacts:

If you need to access your contacts list away from your computer, it's easy to print contacts.

1. Click the File tab on the Ribbon.
2. Backstage view will appear. Locate and select Print.
3. The Print pane will appear. Choose your desired layout, including business card, phone list, and more, then click Print.

Challenge!

1. Navigate to Contacts view.
2. Add a new contact to your contacts list.
3. Create a contact group.
4. Address a new email message to one of your contacts.