Outlook and SharePoint: Playing Well Together

Contacts. These are records that identify people with whom we interact. In SharePoint, contacts are typically shared by project or site; the contacts the IT team keeps will be different from the contacts the HR department keeps. SharePoint contacts are directly analogous to the Contact entries in Outlook and contain many of the same properties, as Figure 3 shows. By using a contact list in SharePoint, everyone who has access to the list has a single place to update the contacts, instead of having to maintain and swap Contact objects. You could also use public folders to share contacts, but then each recipient has to manually track the latest versions and update them.

Events. Events are records that describe appointments, meetings, or other calendar data. In SharePoint, calendar data is typically shared by project or site, providing a convenient tool for groups. Outlook users are familiar with calendar data, so having shared calendars for specific projects—and having those calendars automatically update—is a huge win.

Tasks. These are records that capture items that you're responsible for accomplishing, along with their due date, as Web Figure 2 shows. Both SharePoint and Outlook offer support for creating and assigning tasks, but a SharePoint task list is immediately visible to all users without having to manually send out and update the tasks. Outlook will remind you of SharePoint tasks that are due and show them in your calendar.

RSS feeds. These are XML files that describe Web-based content without formatting. They provide a way to subscribe to a content producer and regularly pull updates into the user's client of choice. Although you can modify WSS2.0 to provide RSS feeds, feeds are built into WSS 3.0 and are natively available for most types of lists. The ability to consume RSS feeds is a native feature of Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 7.0 and Outlook 2007. By leveraging this capability, you can consume practically any type of data stored in SharePoint beyond the types already mentioned. Figure 4, shows an RSS feed in Outlook.

Synchronizing Content
There are no special steps that you need to take to get Outlook talking to SharePoint; all the correct ActiveX controls are installed when you install Outlook. As you add SharePoint resources to Outlook, Outlook must track those resources. Both versions of Outlook create a separate PST file store on the local hard drive to hold the SharePoint content. Each separate SharePoint list is seen in Outlook as a unique folder within this new store. When new content is posted to the linked SharePoint list, Outlook copies it to the appropriate folder.

This synchronization design has several implications that you need to be aware of. First, whenever you launch Outlook, it automatically attempts to synchronize SharePoint resources. This is great when you have access to the SharePoint server because it allows you to view the latest version of your SharePoint resources when you're offline without having to manually fuss with synchronization. The downside is that if Outlook can't connect to your configured SharePoint resources, you'll see annoying authentication prompts and synchronization errors.

Because of this synchronization design, to keep automatic synchronization working, you must keep the folders in the SharePoint store. You can copy items out of these folders and into regular folders, but if you move the linked folders, Outlook will lose the link to SharePoint and will stop updating them. Likewise, any items that you copy or move from these folders won't be updated in their new locations.

Finally, the SharePoint personal store is unique to both the Outlook profile you're using and the computer you're running it on; if you use both a desktop and a laptop, you must add your SharePoint resources to both instances of Outlook.

Configuring Outlook
The process for using Outlook with SharePoint is simple. The following steps outline the general procedures for accessing and working with different types of content.

To access a SharePoint list:

1. Access the SharePoint list that you want to synchronize with Outlook.
2. Perform one of the following actions:
   • For WSS 2.0 and SPS 2.0 Contact and Event lists, select the Link to Outlook option in the list's header. See Figure 3 for an example of this option.
   • For most WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 lists, select the Connect with Outlook option under the Actions menu in the list's header.
3. Let Outlook synchronize with the SharePoint resources automatically.
4. Optionally, copy the SharePoint data to other Outlook folders as needed.

To link an attachment in Outlook to a SharePoint Shared Workspace:

1. Open the message and attach the file as usual.
2. Click the Attachment Options button, which Web Figure 3 shows.
3. Select the Shared attachments option.
4. Select an existing parent site under which to create the new Document Workspace or provide the URL of another parent SharePoint site.
5. Send the message.

To link an Outlook meeting invitation with a SharePoint Meeting Workspace:

1. Open the meeting invitation in Outlook. Enter the details and invite the attendees.
2. Click the Meeting Workspace button and specify the URL of the parent SharePoint site.
3. Perform one of the following actions:
   • To create a new workspace, leave
   the Create a new workspace option selected. Select the template language and template type from the lists.
   • To use an existing workspace, select it from the list.
4. Click OK to create the meeting invitation and create or link the meeting workspace.