How to create a shared company calendar and contact list You can use MailSite and ExpressPro to create a company wide address book and a company events calendar, which each employee can view and modify from within their copy of Outlook 2007. This document details how to achieve this.

Preparation

1. Create a DNS Alias for your main ExpressPro web access address to use for the shared list access. For more details on why this is required see the FAQ below.
Create a new mailbox in MailSite to host the shared contacts and calendar and set an appropriate password. For this example we will be using shared@domain.com.

Creating a shared contact list

1. Log into ExpressPro using your new DNS alias and shared mailbox.
2. Select the contacts section.
3. Click the 'Link to Outlook' button in the menu bar.
4. In Outlook click 'yes' to link to the contact list, and enter the shared@domain.com email address for the username, and the password for the mailbox. You should now see the contacts list in the 'Other Contacts' section, on the left hand side of the Outlook screen. You can now log out of ExpressPro.
5. Create any contacts you want in this list, or copy them from your Outlook address book to the list. These will automatically be saved to the ExpressPro server.

Once you have added all the contacts you want you are ready to share the list with the other employees in the company, by following the steps below

1. Right click the contact list entry on the left hand side of the Outlook screen.
2. Select 'Share shared@domain.com - Contacts' from the menu. This will cause a special email compose window to open.
3. Add the addresses of the people you wish to share the list with to the email recipient fields.
4. Provide instructions in the email body section telling the user to click the link in the email, and when prompted provide the shared@domain.com email address and password.
5. Send the email. The recipients simply click the link it contains, provide the access details, and the list will be added to their copy of Outlook.

Creating a shared calendar

1. Log into ExpressPro using your new DNS alias and shared mailbox.
2. Select the calendar section.
3. Click the 'Link to Outlook' button in the menu bar.
4. In Outlook click 'yes' to link to the calendar, and enter the shared@domain.com email address for the username and the password for the mailbox. You should now see the calendar in the 'Other Calendars' section on the left hand side of the Outlook screen. You can now log out of ExpressPro.
5. Create any appointments you want in this shared calendar or copy them from your Outlook calendar to the shared calendar. These will automatically be saved to the ExpressPro server.

Once you have added all the information you want you are ready to share the list with the other employees in the company, by following the steps below.

1. Right click the calendar entry on the left hand side of the Outlook screen.
2. Select 'Share shared@domain.com - Default Calendar' from the menu. This will cause a special email compose window to open.
3. Add the addresses of the people you wish to share the list with to the email recipient fields.
4. Provide instructions in the email body section, telling the user to click the link in the email and when prompted provide the shared@domain.com email address and password.
5. Send the email. The recipients simply click the link it contains, provide the access details and the list will be added to their Outlook install.

FAQ

Why do I need a DNS alias?

In order to have a shared company contact list and still allow employees to 'link' their personal contacts with Outlook, the company contacts link needs to be located on a separate sub domain. This is because Outlook 2007 saves access credentials for a linked item on a per domain basis.

For example, if your main ExpressPro access url is www.domain.com/ExpressPro and a user has linked their contacts to their outlook using this url already, Outlook will have saved their email address and password for this linked list, and associated them with the www.domain.com address. On any subsequent attempts to link a list from the www.domain.com address, Outlook will use the same access details without prompting, resulting in the wrong list being subscribed to.

To overcome this limitation you will need to set up a DNS alias for the www.domain.com address or use the IP address to directly access the server e.g. http://companycontacts.domain.com/ExpressPro or http://10.42.1.2/ExpressPro

Can I share a calendar in read only format?

Yes. To do this you will need to create a published view as follows:

1. Log into the ExpressPro using the shared@domain.com mailbox.
2. Select the calendar section.
3. Right click on the default calendar and select 'Generate new view' from under the 'Publish' menu item.
4. In the publish section now shown below the calendar on the right hand side of the screen , set a name for the new view and select what detail you want it to display.
5. Click the 'Apply' button to save the view.
6. Right click on the Default calendar again.
7. Select the view you just created from under the Publish option. This will cause the email compose page to open with a link in the email body.
8. Edit the email to your liking, and enter the addresses of those you wish to share the calendar with.
9. Send the email. The recipients simply click the link in the email to add the Calendar to their copy of outlook. This type of view can also be used in Google Calendar, Apple iCal and other applications.

Can I share a Read only contact list?

Unfortunately this is not possible at this time.