Wouldn't it be cool to electronically organize all those slips of paper with phone numbers, find out your boss's husband's name in a snap, and keep phone logs of business calls for multiple clients - all from within the same program? With Outlook 2000 and Access 2000, you can stay on top of all your contact information more easily than ever! Both programs offer useful and convenient features, but, depending on what you need, some unique items may tip the balance one way or the other.

Features common to Outlook and Access

Outlook and Access are excellent programs for managing your personal and business contacts. Both offer you the following benefits:

• Keep your contact information, such as name, e-mail address, street address, multiple phone numbers, and other information that relates to the contact (for example, birthday, spouse's name, or anniversary date) all in one place.
• Search, view, group, sort, and filter your contact information.
• Control access to your contact list.
• Allow multiple users to work with the contact list simultaneously.
• Set reminders for future events with contacts.
• Keep a permanent record of the time and subject of all calls.
• Send e-mail to any contact by clicking a button.
• Print labels or envelopes with contact information (mail merge).
• Export your contact list to other programs, including to each other.

Features unique to Outlook

In addition to the contact information features that both programs have in common, Outlook offers you the following:

• From any open contact, click the Display Map of Address button to start your Web browser with Automatic Map and go to the Microsoft Expedia® Web site, where a free service will plot a map to any address in the United States.
• Find and open a contact by typing the name into the Find a Contact box on the toolbar.
• Right-click a contact in your contact list to set up a meeting request or make a task request.
• Create distribution lists of selected contacts from your Contacts folder.
• Set specific sharing permissions on contact folders and calendars.
• Choose not to allow duplicates when you import contact lists from other programs (such as Access) into Outlook.
• Download contact lists into personal palm computing devices.
• Work with electronic postage programs.

Outlook will also perform the following function for you automatically:

• Format phone numbers so that your phone list is more readable, consistent, and accurate.

Features unique to Access

Access offers you the following unique contact information features with the ready-to-use CONTACT database:

• Preview and print various reports, such as your contacts in alphabetical order or your weekly call summary, reminders, etc., in chronological order.
• Apply user-level security with the User-Level Security Wizard to control access to your contact database.
• Print labels and envelopes with contact information directly from the program with the Access Label Wizard.
• Quickly import contacts directly from Outlook with a click of a button.

 Note   You will receive a warning that Access will import all contacts. This means that if a contact already exists in the Access database, you will get a duplicate.

Feature comparison

More information

For more information about maintaining your contact lists, type managing contacts in the Office Assistant or on the Answer Wizard tab in the Outlook 2000 or Access 2000 Help window, and then click Search.

You can also search on these specific topics in Outlook:

• Import a contact list or a file from another Office program
• Schedule and Track Appointments and Other Dates
• Set a reminder for a contact
• Set sharing permissions for a folder

Likewise, you can search on these specific topics in Access:

• Create mailing and other types of labels
• Import data from Microsoft Outlook
• Secure a database using the User-Level Security Wizard
• Work with user and group accounts

For related information, see MapPoint 2000.