Contacts

Contact list can also be shared easily with SharePoint. This provides the same functionality that many people have used a public folder in the past for, but SharePoint has much better support for alerting on changes, custom fields, versioning and more.

Linking Contacts to Outlook

1) Navigate to the Contact list in SharePoint

2) Select Actions\Connect to Outlook from the list’s pull-down menu

Document Libraries

When a document library is linked to Outlook all items in that library are download to a local PST, the same one used for other linked lists. Office 2007 applications like Word and Excel have built-in support to detect that files in local PST are being opened. These applications will prompt the user to update the copy of the file in SharePoint when saving changes or inform users a more recent copy is available in SharePoint, if they are on-line.

Linking a Document library to Outlook

1) Navigate to the Document library list in SharePoint

2) Select Actions\Connect to Outlook from the list’s pull-down menu

Editing Documents

Documents can be edited directly from SharePoint, which is suggested, or by opening them inside of Outlook. Below are the steps to open documents from Outlook directly.

1) Click the Folder List icon to show the all folders available to Outlook

· This will display all folders, including those in your mailbox and in PST files.

2) Expand the "SharePoint List" folder group\PST

Figure 17 - SharePoint lists PST

· This contains all SharePoint lists that have been linked to Outlook. Contacts, Tasks, and Calendars can also be viewed by going to the appropriate section in Outlook.

3) Select the document library folder, in my case this is "Demo Site – Files"

· All files that are in this library will be shown; if folders have been created they will also be shown.

4) Double click the document you want to open

5) Click Edit Offline, if the document in a Word or Excel, and possible other Office 2007 documents

Figure 18 - Edit Offline option in Word

6) Click OK when Office displays an information message that the file will be cached to the SharePoint Drafts folder

7) Edit the document as normal

8) When done editing exit the application

9) The application will prompt you to update the server, SharePoint, choose Update

Figure 19 - Update server prompt

· If the user is offline they will not prompted to update the server. They will be shown in Outlook that the file they edited has been modified offline, note the icon with the red up arrow in the screen shot below. To update the server the document needs to be opened again, when the user is on-line.

Figure 20 - Document edited offline

· When the user in back on-line and they open this document, from Outlook, they will see this message:

Figure 21 - Application alert to update SharePoint copy

It is recommended that if a user is going to work on items off-line that they check-out those items in SharePoint to prevent others from editing them. In addition, if a user opens a document in Outlook they should continue to work on it from Outlook, not from SharePoint directly, until they have updated the server version of the document. This will help prevent version conflicts and document update issues.

Discussion Groups

Like the other items covered so far, Discussion Groups can also be linked to Outlook. This allows users to easily monitor discussion groups for new posts. In addition, exiting messages can be copied into the discussion group by dragging them, but folders cannot be dragged to linked discussion groups, at least in the RTM version of SharePoint and Outlook 2007.

Mail Enabling

To truly be a replacement for the most common uses of Public Folders, the "archiving" of e-mails, a discussion group must be mail enabled.

1) Navigate to the Discussion Group list in SharePoint

2) Select Settings\List Settings from the list’s pull-down menu

3) Choose Yes next to Incoming E-Mail and enter the prefix for the e-mail address

Figure 22 - E-mail options

· I would suggest saving attachments and the original e-mail. Save meeting invites can be left to No, unless there is a need to allow people to open up meeting to save them to their calendar. Unless you want anonymous users to post items to this discussion group leave it on the option to accept messages based on permission.

4) Click OK to save changes

Linking Discussion Groups to Outlook

1) Navigate to the Discussion Group list in SharePoint

2) Select Actions\Connect to Outlook from the list’s pull-down menu

Integration Notes

To make list like Document Libraries and Discussion Groups easier to find do the following:

1) Click the "Folders List" icon in Outlook to display the "SharePoint Lists" folder tree

2) Right click the list you want to make easier to find and choose "Add to Favorite Folders"

This will add the folder to the Favorites list, which is displayed when the Mail tab is selected in Outlook.

By default Outlook will synchronize data every 30 mins. To modify this do the following:

1) Goto "Tools -> Send/Receive -> Send/Receive Settings -> Define Send/Receive Groups" menu option or hit CTRL-ALT-S

2) Change the "Schedule an automatic send/receive every X minutes" setting

As an alternative another Send/Receive group can be created for SharePoint list items.

Additional Information

My Tips & Issues (w/ resolutions) list: http://info.izzy.org/Technical/Lists/Issues%20%20Tips/

Microsoft PPT on Office 2007 Integration

o Getting started guide to SharePoint and Office 2007 integration

Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Document

o This white paper describes how different versions of Office programs work together with the 2003 and 2007 versions of SharePoint technologies.

Outlook and SharePoint Integration – Jose Barreto’s Blog

Conclusion

By linking SharePoint lists, which allow for easy updating by multiple users, users will be able to collaborate on projects and other items easier than before. The additional support provided by alerts and versioning also makes managing a project and the related items possible with Outlook alone.


	Become a Columnist \| Microsoft Exchange Site \| Microsoft Support Site \| MSDN Exchange Site