Chapter 3. Contacts

Table of Contents

Contact types and access
Personal contacts
Public contacts
Shared contacts
Contacts - Views
Phone list View
Cards view
Details view (Contacts)
Details view (distribution lists)
Active view after changing the module
Contacts hover
Creating Contacts
Creating new contacts in the Contacts module
Creating new contacts from other modules
Creating a new contact from an E-Mail address
Creating a new contact from a vCard attachment
Entering data for a new contact
Adding attachments to contacts
Saving or discarding entries
Editing contacts
Editing contacts using the panel function
Editing contacts with a double click.
Deleting contacts
Printing contacts
Printing individual contacts
Printing lists of contacts
Duplicating contacts
Moving contacts
Moving contacts using the panel function
Moving contacts using drag-and-drop
Copying contacts
Marking contacts with flags
Marking contacts with flags
Changing flags of contacts
Removing flags from contacts
Searching for contacts
Resetting the display after a search
Exporting contacts
Combining contacts in distribution lists
Creating distribution lists
Entering data for a new distribution list
Editing, deleting, printing distribution lists
Duplicating, moving, copying distribution lists

The Contacts module allows you to manage contacts - personal, public, and shared by other users - as well as the corresponding contact information: business and private addresses, phone and fax numbers, etc. You can associate as many attachments as you wish with your contacts, you can collect internal and external contacts into distribution lists and search for contacts using various criteria.

Figure 3.1. The Contacts module

The Contacts module

Contact types and access

Open-Xchange Server allows you to administer individual contacts as well as collections of contacts via distribution lists. The latter is helpful, for example, if you would like to send some information via E-Mail to all staff members of a department: instead of sending this E-Mail to many individual contacts, you address your message only to the relevant distribution list.

This ensures that all of the appropriate contacts receive your communication. Since a distribution list is simply a special type of contact, all of the following remarks apply equally to individual contacts as well as distribution lists, unless specifically stated otherwise. You can find further information about the usage of distribution lists under the section called “Combining contacts in distribution lists” in this chapter.

Personal contacts

Your personal contacts comprise all of your business partners - customers, vendors, etc. - as well as your private contacts such as friends and acquaintances.

When you open the Contacts module via the Contacts icon in the module toolbar, you will always see your personal contacts (individual contacts as well as distribution lists) from the Contacts folder. Alternatively, you can also open the Contacts folder directly via the folder tree by clicking on this folder in the folder tree.

If you have created additional contact folders within your personal folder in order to effectively manage many contacts from different categories (see the example below), you can access these contact folders only via the folder tree.

Figure 3.2. Personal contact folders

Personal contact folders

Creating additional folders

The flexible folder structure of Open-Xchange Server allows you to create further contact folders in your personal contact folder as well as in other users' shared or public folders - provided you have appropriate access rights. This simplifies the management of multiple different contacts. Section the section called “Folder Management” of the Settings chapter in this user's guide describes how additional folders are created within your personal folders as well as in other users' shared or public folders.

Public contacts

Among the public contacts you will find all internal and external employees of your organization who are registered as users of Open-Xchange Server. In addition, the administrator as well as other users (provided they have suitable access rights) can create further public contact folders for common use in the company. This improves teamwork and helps avoid duplication of data.

In order to access public contact folders and their contents (contacts and distribution lists), you expand the public folders entry in the folder tree and then click on the contact folder that you would like to open in the Contacts module: for example the Global address book folder holding all users of Open-Xchange Server - as shown in the following figure.

Figure 3.3. Public contact folders

Public contact folders

Opening folders via the folder tree

Since the folder tree always displays all personal folders and accessible shared folders of other users, you can quickly navigate from any folder or module of Open-Xchange Server to another folder.

Simply click on the desired folder in the folder tree: This activates the appropriate module for the selected folder - Email, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks or InfoStore - and displays the content of the selected folder.

Shared contacts

In addition to public contact folders, all users can share their personal contact folders with specific other users or user groups.

In order to access other users' shared contacts, expand the entry Shared Folders in the folder tree as well as the entry for the user whose contact folder you would like to open. Afterward, click on one of the contact folders this user has shared with you. Similar to accessing public contact folders, the Contacts module opens and displays the content of the selected contact folder.

Figure 3.4. Shared contact folders

Shared contact folders

Public and shared contact folders

Thanks to the flexible folder structure of Open-Xchange Server you can access and manage your personal contacts and also public contacts as well as other users' contact folders that were shared with you. Depending on your access rights, you can display, create, edit, or delete contacts in other users' shared folders.

The section the section called “Public and Shared Folders” in the Settings chapter in this user's guide describes the difference between public and shared folders. It explains how public folders are created, how personal folders are shared, and how appropriate access rights are defined for other users.