Multiple Users - One Outlook Contact List

I've been dealing with updating various Outlook contact lists for years and just found Plaxo which looks pretty cool.

My wife and I have two computers (WinXP & Outlook 2000) that we both use. We each have a login on each computer and have Outlook 2000 on both machines (laptop and desktop).

We'd would prefer to keep our inboxes separate, but use a combined calendar and contact list. Now that I think about it, maybe keep our inboxes and calendars separate and have one contact list.

We currently have to update FOUR Outlook files - update each Outlook .pst on the laptop, then each on the desktop. I don't care if I see her contacts and visa-versa so one list would be best.

Maybe I'm providing too much info here....

Gosh, it would be nice to have it set up like work - we have a global contact list that can only be updated by the Exchange team, and we all have the same contacts updated at the same time.

Get where I'm going? How will Plaxo fit our needs? Heck I'm going to try it anyway but was hoping for some feedback.

Steve

Hello and welcome SteveMcG,

Im not sure if I really understand you, you want to have separate mailboxes but one contactbook. Is that correct? If im right, then you can try to install Plaxo 2.0(for Outlook & Outlook Express) on al machines, then create one Plaxo account and use that account on al machines. Then you can sync on al machines and have on al computers the same updated contactbook. In these case i woud use yours and yours wife name in the Name field, and put your mail in E-mail 1: and hers email in E-mail 2:.

But after all these is just an idea. I dont think(almost sure) Plaxo is made for seprate mailboxes of two users with one Plaxo account.

Take care, and have a nice weekend.

I think as long as you are managing what folders to sync through plaxo you are golden. Just use the "Synchronization Manager" from the plaxo outlook toolbar to manage those folders.

Yup - thanks for the answers.

Everything seems to be working well. I'm having some issues sending (and receiving?) mail from the Outlook client right now, but I'm not sure the installation of Plaxo was the issue.

I'll do a search to see if there are any issues.

Hello. I'm a newbie to plaxo as well and after googling for "global contact list" plaxo, this forum thread was the only thing that appears to be within my range of a question. Your assistance will be throughly apprecaited.

My Problem

My mom's boyfriend has started a small investments business which is composed of 5 employees at the current moment. All of these employees need a solution for email and most importantly, contact management. Basically, they would like to share all their accounts under one directory. One employee would also like to sync up a proposed Palm Treo to all of this contact information, both sharing and recieving new contacts.

I recall while working at a real estate agency, the IT lady had some kind of a server setup that hosted a global contact information source which was accessable via outlook. Asides from storing 'personal' contact information, is Plaxo capable of sharing a certain contact directory while automatically updating new entries and changes? Basically the employees want to be able to add some contacts to a list for a certain investmens lead, and have it for nearly instant available access from another employee to access this 'list'.

I read the posts above and someone suggested to just have one plaxo account. I am only curious if that is the only solution to this issue as if it isn't, it would be nice to allocate the flexibility of allowing the employees to have a 'personal' contact list also while having a 'global' contact list for business-wide sharing as well.

Once again thanks a lot for your assistance,
- Newbie "IT" setup person. (Bob)

Currently, Plaxo does not provide group folder sharing functionality.

If you are running your internal mail server on something like Exchange, you could setup an shared Exchange contact folder that each user on the server has access to. Contacts stored into the shared folder would be accessible by everyone who is given access to the shared folder.

Plaxo could even play a role here. One of the user could be running Plaxo and usijng Plaxo to manage the shared folder. Plaxo would update the contact entries as normal, and everyone would share in the updated information.

This would also allow people to install Plaxo on their own systems and manage their own personal contacts along with the shared contacts.





Plaxo could then be used to keep this folder updated.

Thanks for the response. I decided just to create one plaxo account for the whole companie's business contacts since they've decided that they'd prefer to all share contacts automatically and directly have control over the main contact list's entries. It would be great when Plaxo gets shared group folder support in the future.

Thanks again,
Bob.

That's certainly an option, and I'm sure many small business have done the same. The only downside to this approach is the Plaxo account only has 1 "identity". In other words, you have can only represent yourself as a single person or organization with the Plaxo account. So while this may be useful for the company to keep their address book entries updated, it may not be as effective for the individuals within the company to keep others updated.