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Microsoft 365 - (Outlook Client for Windows) - Create, Populate, Share, and Assign Permissions to Folders in Contacts
Creating contact groups for your own personal use in Outlook is easy, but sharing and assigning permission levels to those groups is a slightly more complex process. To create a group for your own personal use (no sharing involved) simply click on New Contact Group and populate it. In order to share it and assign permissions to others, you first have to create a new folder for that group as only folders can be shared, not groups. Please follow the steps below.
Create a new folder:
1. Go to People.
2. Right-click on your Contacts folder (or any other parent folder).
3. Choose New folder.
4. Type a name for your folder.
5. Click OK to create the folder.
Populate your new folder with new people or groups (Note: If you have an existing group, simply drag it from your list of contacts into the newly created folder.)
1. Select your folder.
2. To add individuals or groups, select New Contact or New Contact Group from the ribbon. Multiple individuals or multiple groups can be added.
3. If you select New Contact Group, you will then need to select Add Members from the ribbon.
4. Select where you want to populate the new members from.
5. Double-click on as few or as many individuals as you would like.
6. When done, select OK.
7. Click on Save & Close in the ribbon.
8. To enable the folder as an option in the Address Book, please do the following:
1.Right-click on the new folder
2.Choose Properties
3.Select the Outlook Address Book tab
4.Verify the option to use the folder as an address book is selected
Share your contacts folder with others:
1. In People, in the Folder Pane, click the contact folder that you want to share with a person in your organization.
2. Click Home. Then, in the Share group, click Share Contacts.
3. In the To box, enter the name of the recipient for the sharing invitation message. If you want to, you can change the Subject.
4. Check the box that says, Allow recipients to view your folder.
5. In the message body, type any information that you want to include, and then click Send. Review the confirmation dialog box, and then if correct, click OK.
6. The person in your organization receives the sharing invitation in email, and clicks Open this Contacts folder.
7. Please Note: If you add or delete members to this folder after the fact, the people that you shared your contact folder with may not see those changes until they have signed out and then signed back in.
8. To enable the folder as an option in the Address Book, the person you shared it with will need to do the following:
1.Right-click on the new folder
2.Choose Properties
3.Select the Outlook Address Book tab
4.Verify the option to use the folder as an address book is selected
Change permissions after you have shared a contacts folder with other people:
1. In People, in the Folder Pane, click the contacts folder for which you want to change permissions.
2. Click Folder. Then, in the Properties group, click Folder Permissions.
3. On the Permissions tab, do one of the following:
o Revoke or change access permissions for everyone - In the Name box, click Default. Under Permissions, in the Permission Level list, click None to revoke permissions or any of the other options to change permissions.
o Revoke or change access permissions for one person - In the Name box, click the name of the person whose access permissions you want to change. Under Permissions, in the Permission Level list, click None to revoke permissions or any of the other options to change permissions.
Mail/Folder Permissions:
- Owner: Allows full rights to the mailbox, including assigning permissions; you should not assign this role to anyone
- Publishing Editor: Create, read, edit, and delete all items; create subfolders
- Editor: Create, read, edit, and delete all items
- Publishing Author: Create and read items; create subfolders; edit and delete items they've created
- Author: Create and read items; edit and delete items they've created
- Non-editing Author: Create and read items; delete items they've created
- Reviewer: Read items
- Contributor: Create items
- None: Gives no permissions for the selected accounts on the specified folder
4. Click OK.
For the most current instructions, please reference the following Microsoft help article: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/share-a-contacts-folder-with-others-ce5a40d1-bc9f-4f5d-a2aa-5ec388573821