There is no easy way to maintain "distribution lists" of students in Outlook Express (too many to keep track of, and the names/addresses change each term) - but you can "group" together constant addresses (like faculty) with GROUPS in Outlook Express. [This is the "voice" I'm going to use .. faculty creating other groups of faculty - obviously this could be modified to be "groups of friends", etc.]
Once "groups" get created (by, say one faculty), they could be "shared" to other faculty (I see this as something we might want to do right now, to get the names around .. you wouldn't do this too much in the future, once you have all the names you need). This "sharing" is done by saving out the address book list in a particular file format, and then importing it back into the new machine. Or, when a new term starts, and the groups change .. you could "refresh" the group identities by importing the new groups.
[If you just want to learn how to make groups in Outlook Express ... download this file (tip sheet in Acrobat 5.0 PDF format).]
Should I copy "contacts" or "groups" or both? ... Both! - Keep in mind .. "Groups" are just a way for Outlook Express to put together a set of contacts .. but the contacts have to be there to group together! This means, if you want to copy some "groups" to another machine, you have to make sure that you copy the contacts also!
What if there are duplicate contacts? ... It appears that Outlook Express is relatively smart .. it assumes that the contacts you already have should count more than similar ones that might be imported .. thus if the contact already exists, OE doesn't import that particular duplicate. [Note, if the names are slightly different, you might get a "new" contact.] But, it seems to realize that the "group identity" should change .. thus we can use this to "update" the groups (for example, each term, the particular teachers in the "Physics 1 Lab Instructors" group would be different ... a new file could be passed around, imported, and the new makeup of the group would be updated. At least, that's the way it seems to work!
Step 1)Exporting your Address Book to a WAB file (Windows Address Book format).
If you are going to pass a set of contacts/groups to someone else, you would do this first .. (if you are receiving an updated WAB file .. look further down this tips sheet). OE will prompt you for a location to save that file (probably the "My Documents" folder) - keep track of that location, give it a distinctive name, and export the data.
Step 2) You may want to edit that Address book before passing it along (note, it is now disconnected from the Outlook Express data!). Go find that file, and double click on it (OE does not have to be open) - it will open the "address book program" and show you all the contacts and groups in that address book. You can now remove any contacts that you don't want to copy over .. and/or delete any groups you don't want to copy over. A couple of things to note .. if you "delete" a group, it does NOT delete the contacts (whew!) - but if you want to copy a "group" over to another machine, it would be wise to make sure the contacts are STILL in this address book (if they also exist over in the new machine, fine ... but if they don't, and you didn't move them, the group would be incomplete).
Step 3) BACKUP YOUR OWN ADDRESS BOOK BEFORE IMPORTING A NEW ONE! I would recommend backing up your address book (on the "new" machine) before you import another address book. That way, in case there is a problem, you could delete the contacts, and re-import from your saved backup.
Step 4) Once you are ready to import the new contacts/groups, Open Outlook Express, go to FILE then IMPORT then WAB.
Step 4) This should show a possibly new set of groups and contacts!
Return to the Laptop help page
Last Updated = Friday, 03-Feb-2006 22:34:11 EST Of the 87 people that have visited this site, you are the most recent.