The integration of Outlook with SharePoint enhances
collaboration and information sharing within your organization. Outlook
enables users to access and update content, as well as share
information within SharePoint across multiple sites. Users can maintain
shared items from calendars, contacts, and tasks lists, in addition to
searching, previewing, and editing documents from within Outlook.
Outlook also enables users to receive updates and notifications about
changes that occur within SharePoint in two ways:
-
RSS
feeds allow users to subscribe to a list, so that when changes occur in
a SharePoint list or library, they receive periodic feeds right to
Outlook.
-
The alert notification features of SharePoint are another powerful
way that users can be kept up to date on any content changes within
SharePoint. Alerts are much more configurable, and you can receive them
at specific times or intervals. You can choose to be notified of any
changes that may have occurred within a specific area of SharePoint.
The alerts can be modified to deliver a more granular layer of detail
so that you are not inundated with alerts.
To connect calendar, contacts, tasks, or a library to Outlook, use
the Connect To Outlook command on the List or Library tab, in the
Connect & Export group, as shown in Figure 1.
Once connected to Outlook, users can share information throughout
the organization from within Outlook or SharePoint. In Outlook,
connected libraries can be found below SharePoint Lists, as shown in Figure 2.
Calendar lists are displayed under Other Calendars in the calendar
navigation pane, contact lists are displayed under Other Contacts, and
task lists will be listed on the Tasks navigation pane under Other
Tasks.
Outlook users can
access connected lists and libraries, the contents of which can be
taken offline and updated when the Send/Receive command is run. New
files added to a SharePoint folder that is connected to your Outlook
should download automatically. If they do not, you can download a file
from a SharePoint library into Outlook by performing the following
steps:
-
In Outlook, select the SharePoint list connected with Outlook that contains the file that you want to download.
-
In the SharePoint Library Folder message list, in the Available For
Download group, right-click the file that you want to download.
If you would like to download multiple files at once, you can also
hold down the Ctrl key as you select the files you’d like to download.
-
Select Mark To Download on the Send/Receive tab in the Server group.
If you have a connection to the server, the file will be downloaded. If file does not download, click Send/Receive.
With
connected calendar lists, users can view an overlay of the calendars
for an all-encompassing view of event information. Users can connect to
and view multiple calendars simultaneously to check for possible event
conflicts, allowing for greater control over their schedules. This
feature also assists managers in proper resource scheduling and
planning by avoiding overbooking people.
If you no longer want a SharePoint list or library
connected to Outlook, navigate to where you can see the list or library
in Outlook, right-click the list or library, and then select, for
example, Delete Folder. The list or library will no longer appear in
Outlook but will still exist within the SharePoint site.
