[A hidden but very useful feature of Outlook appointments is that you can link contacts to them. Here’s why and how.]
Why you may want to show contacts on Outlook Appointments?
Having your contacts linked to the Outlook Calendar appointment lets you see all the people associated with the appointment. In case you need to reschedule the appointment, you can simply get more information about the contact (like phone number) directly from the appointment screen and make a call to inform them of the reschedule.
Apart from being able to get information about the contact straight from the Appointments screen, the appointment will also appear in the Activities tab of contact record and also in the People pane when you receive an email from the contact.
How to display Outlook Contacts on Appointments?
The first thing you need to do is to make the Contacts field visible on your Appointment form. In the versions prior to Outlook 2007, the Contacts field was always available on the Appointment form, but this feature was disabled by default in the later versions.
To enable Contacts button on the Appointment form in Outlook 2010 and 2007:
- In Outlook 2010, click on File > Options > click Contacts from the left pane
- Tick the option “Show contacts linked to the current item“
- Click OK
- In Outlook 2007, click Tools > Options…
- Under the Preferences tab, click the Contacts Option… button
- Tick the option “Show contact linking on all Forms“
- Click OK and then OK again
To start attaching contacts to an appointment:
- Go to your Calendar folder and create a new Appointment, you will find the Contacts button as shown below:
- Say for example you want to create a meeting with Sanjay Singh of Standss (South Pacific) Limited. Simply click on the Contacts button, select Sanjay Singh from your contacts list and click OK.
- Click Save and Close to create the appointment.
You can also link contacts to other Outlook items such as Tasks, Journal, Notes etc following similar steps.
Let us know if you find this tip useful by leaving a comment below.
