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Instructions for use
It is important that you read the ‘Instructions For Use’ prior to installation of e-Contacts EP on your computer.

  1. General
  2. Disconnecting from e-Contacts EP and deleting old file versions
  3. Installation
  4. Sharing e-Contacts EP as an MS Exchange Public Folder on the network
  5. Using and customizing predefined list views
  6. Creating custom views
  7. Copying and exporting lists
  8. Group mailings
  9. Technical notes
  10. E-Contacts EP fields

1. General

These instructions are based on Microsoft® Outlook 2000®, procedures in previous and later versions may differ slightly. Instructions assume the user’s basic general familiarity with the Micosoft® Windows® environment and with basic standard operations such as “drag-and-drop”, “cut-and-paste”, use of menus and dialogue boxes, etc.

e-Contacts EP is a “PST” file, the standard form at used and created by MS Outlook. In consequence, its use follows the standard Outlook procedures, as described in Outlook Help (accessible e.g. by pressing the “F1” function key on your keyboard).

Below, we have outlined some normal everyday steps in installing and using e-Contacts EP.

If at any point you have a question not answered by this documentation or Outlook Help, you may: Throughout our documentation we assume that you have a mouse with at least two mouse buttons, the right one being activated for “right-clicking” for a context-sensitive menu.

Mailings through e-mail, fax, printout, etc. depend on your installations, priorities and routines. Below, we have described various methods of selecting and preparing data for mailings and other purposes. Users who need more flexibility in printing labels, etc. directly from Outlook may want to consider “Alladins”, an Outlook add-in available on a try-before-you-buy basis from www.software-solutions.co.nz.

Since Outlook97 was not fully year-2000-compatible, we assume that users have upgraded to a later version of Outlook. We have therefore streamlined e-Contacts EP for these versions. In consequence, email address fields are open for edits, but read-only in Outlook97.



2. Disconnecting from e-Contacts EP and deleting old file versions

Although new versions of e-Contacts EP may co-exist with older ones, you may first want to delete old versions from Outlook and your hard disk. If, however, you have entered your own data into the old Outlook file, you may want to keep this, possibly for transferring custom data to the new file. If you need assistance in this, please let us know.

The following steps do not apply to updating single addresses.

  1. On the View menu, make sure that Folder List is selected to make it visible.
  2. In the Folder list, right-click on Personal Folders and select "Close Personal Folders". This will only disconnect Outlook from the file, but not delete it. If you have a slow PC, this may be an advisable measure when not using e-Contacts EP.
  3. To delete the old e-Contacts EP file from your hard disk, delete it from the C:\My Documents\ e-Contacts EP folder (or your custom location).
If you are sharing e-Contacts EP as a MS Exchange Public Folder, select it in the Folder List (under All Public Folders) and delete it. This will remove all data from MS Exchange Server.


3. Installation

Note: “Installation” of e-Contacts EP does not install or change any programme or configuration files. The procedure only serves to copy the data file to your hard disk and make it readily available in Outlook. This can easily be reversed at any time.
  1. Make sure no previous version of E-Contacts E is open in Outlook. If so, please disconnect it (see: Chapter 2 above).
  2. Double-click on the e-mail file attachment (e-Contacts EP xxxx.x.)
  3. In the WinZip Self-Extractor window that now opens, either accept the default folder setting (C:\My Documents\E-Contacts), or point to different folder. If you chose a different location, memorize it.
  4. Start Outlook
  5. On the Outlook menu, select File / Open / Personal Folders File (pst) Navigate to the folder: C:\My Documents\E-Contacts (or your custom location) and double-click on e-Contacts EP xxxx.x.
  6. On the View menu, make sure that Folder List is selected to make it visible.
  7. In the Folder list, find e-Contacts EP xxxx.x (or Personal Folders ) and click on the "+" to expand the view.



4. Sharing e-Contacts EP as an MS Exchange Public Folder on the network

The following assumes that you are connected to a network running MS Exchange Server. Make sure your network administrator has created a Public Folder and that you have permission to create folders in this.
  1. On the Outlook View menu, click Folder List.
  2. Click the e-Contacts EP xxxx.x folder.
  3. On the File menu, point to Folder, and then click Move e-Contacts EP xxxx.x.
  4. In the Copy the selected folder to the folder list, scroll down and click on the “+” next to Public Folders and select All Public Folders. Please be patient: This process may take some considerable time!
  5. Repeat step 7 from chapter 3 above on all computers using e-Contacts EP
  6. In the Folder List, right-click on Personal Folders (now empty except for Deleted Items) and select "Close Personal Folders".



5. Using and customizing pre-defined list views

Any views may also be used for printout or for copy and paste into other programs. Before you decide to customize a predefined view, consider creating a new one (see next chapter).

To customize a view, you may choose to add fields, or to rearrange the sequence.

  1. Make sure the “Current View” list box is displayed in your Outlook Menu. If necessary, make the “Advanced Toolbar” visible (Menu: View/Toolbars – select “Advanced”).
  2. Clicking on the list box arrow will display the pre-defined views.
  3. Clicking on an entry will activate that view.

In the following, we will describe selection of assorted contacts, using the “Budgetary Control” as an example.
  1. From the “Current View” list box, select “By EP Category”. This will display a collapsed view of all EP Committees, Delegations, etc.
  2. Clicking on the “+” next to “Budgetary Control” will display a list of its Members (Remember: In each Committee, there is a set of full members as in “Budgetary Committee”, and a set of substitute members as in “Budgetary Control-S”)


In addition to the displayed fields, you may require other fields. To add the to the list view:
  1. Right-click on the Column Header row.
  2. Select “Field Chooser” from the menu.
  3. To make sure to have a choice from all available fields, select “All Contact fields” from the Field Chooser drop-down list
  4. Scroll down, click on “E-mail”, and drag it (keeping the left mouse button pressed) to the Column Header row where you want to place it (see note below).
  5. To change the position of a field, drag its heading to another position in the Column Header row.



  6. To delete a field, drag its heading down until it is displayed with an “X”. Drop to delete from view.
To rename Column Headers in a view:
  1. Right-click on the Column Header.
  2. On the drop-down menu, select “Format Columns”
  3. Change the entry in the “Label:” field.
To sort by a field:

Click on the corresponding Column Header. Clicking once will sort by ascending; clicking again will sort by descending order (as displayed by the arrow).




6. Creating custom views

In many cases, the easiest way of creating a new custom view is by copying and changing an existing view. As an example, we will describe creating a view that displays only Environment Committee Members (full and Substitute).
  1. On the Outlook menu: View / Current View / Define Views…
  2. Select a view you want to base your custom view on – in this case: “By EP category”
  3. Click the “Copy…” button on the right.
  4. In the “Name of new view” field of the “Copy View” window, type “Environment Committee Members”
  5. In the “View Summary” window, click on the “Filter” button.
  6. In the “Filter” window, click on the “Advanced” tab.
  7. Click on the “Field” drop-down list, rest the cursor on “the “Frequently used fields” entry, and click on “Categories”. The “Condition” field is automatically set to “contains”.
  8. Type “Environment” in the “Value” field. (To have only Full Committee Members, type the exact Category, in this case: “Environment Committee”).
  9. Click the “Add to list” button, and close the next two windows by pressing “OK” twice, which brings you back to the “Define Views” window.
  10. Press “Apply View” button.










The view you have now created displays only Members of the “Environment” Committee, but note that it also displays all other Committees they belong to. Although this may be helpful in some cases, you may want only a list of the Environment Committee. To achieve this, some more steps are required:
  1. Make sure the new “Environment Committee Members” view is active.
  2. On the Outlook menu: View / Current View / Customize Current View…
  3. In the “View Summary” window, click on the “Group by…” button.
  4. In the “Group items by…” drop-down list, select the top entry: “(none)”
  5. Close all windows with “OK”. This gives you a ‘clean’ list of Committee Members.


7. Copying and exporting lists

Any Outlook list may be printed directly from Outlook, copied into a separate Outlook folder for re-use (e.g. as a distribution list for mailings by e-mail, fax, print, etc.), and/or copied to a separate application (e.g. Access, Excel, etc.)

Note: The data in your new Contacts subfolder is a copy: Updating data in one location will not update its copy. Both copying and pasting may take some time, please do not interrupt.

7.1. Copying a list into a separate Outlook folder

This procedure makes often-used selections permanently available. As an example, we will use the “Environment Committee Members” list to create a separate contacts folder.
  1. On the “Outlook Bar” (on the left of the Outlook screen), click on “Contacts”.
  2. On the Menu: File / Folder / New Folder
  3. In the “Create new folder” window, enter “Environment Committee Members” in the “Name” field and click “OK”.
  4. Display your Folder List to see your new folder – a subfolder to “Contacts”
  5. With the Folder List still displayed, click on the “e-Contacts EP x.x” folder and make sure the “Environment Committee Members” view is active.
  6. Scroll to the top of the list, and select the first entry.
  7. Keeping the “Shift” key on your keyboard pressed, use the arrow keys to scroll to the last list entry. This will select all entries.
  8. Press “Ctrl + C” to copy (or use the Menu: Edit / Copy command).
  9. Select the “Environment Committee Members” Contacts subfolder.
  10. 10. Press “Ctrl + V” to paste (or use the Menu: Edit / Paste command).
The copying action may take some time, please do not interrupt. You have now created a permanent Contacts folder, which (having made it available as an Outlook Address Book, see above) you can use for reference, mailings by e-mail, fax, print, etc.

Note: The data in your new Contacts subfolder is a copy: Updating data in one location will not update its copy.

7.2. Copying a list into an Excel sheet

As an example, we will use the “Environment Committee Members” list to create a separate contacts folder.
  1. Make sure the “Environment Committee Members” view is active in the “E-Contacts EP x.x” folder.
  2. Scroll to the top of the list, and select the first entry.
  3. Keeping the “Shift” key on your keyboard pressed, use the arrow keys to scroll to the last list entry. This will select all entries.
  4. Press “Ctrl + C” to copy (or use the Menu: Edit / Copy command).
  5. Open a new sheet in Excel and make sure the first field (A1) is selected, and Paste.
  6. A new table is created, with the field labels in the first row.


8. Group mailings

8.1. Creating mailings or printing labels in Word

To perform a mail merge.
  1. Start with a main document (also called the starting document), which contains the text, formatting, and any other elements that will always be the same. For example, in a letter, your company/organisation logo and the main letter text will appear in each copy of the letter, even if the address and greeting line vary. You can use an existing document, or you can open a new blank document.
  2. Point to Letters and Mailings on the Tools menu
  3. Click Mail Merge
  4. Open the Mail Merge task pane. By using hyperlinks in the task pane, you can navigate through the mail-merge process.
Note: In Word 2002, on the Tools menu, point to Letters and Mailings, and then click Mail Merge Wizard.

You can also perform a mail merge by using buttons on the Mail Merge toolbar (View menu, Toolbars submenu, Mail Merge command). Until you are familiar with the process, however, it is probably best to use the task pane.

8.2. Group Faxes

Sending a group fax from Outlook to a selected set of recipients depends on the version of Outlook in use and also on the user's fax environment. All fax operations, such as setting up and managing recipient lists, including entries that contain more than one recipient, will work in exactly the same way as with any other Outlook Contacts data.

8.3. Group E-mails

An e-mail to a selected group of recipients is an extremely simple operation:
  1. Configure a list view to show those MEPs to whom you wish to send an e-mail.
  2. Select all. You may choose to select or de-select some by clicking on entries while keeping the “Ctrl” key on your keyboard presses.
  3. On the Outlook menu, click “Actions / New Message to Contact” (in earlier Outlook versions, the menu item is “Compose”). A blank e-mail form with all of the recipients in the "To" field will appear. At this point, you may still add or delete recipients before sending the mail.
You may see a pop-up window informing you that creating the e-mail could take some time and asking you whether you wish to proceed. If so, click "yes" - it rarely takes very long at all. If you wish, you may also cut the recipients out of the "To" field and paste them into the "Bcc" field, which then prevents each recipient from seeing to whom else the e-mail was sent. We must warn you, however, that this Bcc (Blind Carbon Copy) function has been known to fail in some e-mail environments, in which case each recipient will see a list of all recipients.

An information message may also appear if not all selected contacts have e-mail addresses.



9. Technical notes

The behaviour of Outlook depends on a wide range of factors, including version, upgrade/update history, Windows settings, etc. In consequence, work under superficially similar installations and environments may produce surprisingly different results.

Due to the “flat” data structure, a large data store may lead to prolonged programme reaction times, especially in bottlenecked environments.



10. E-Contacts EP fields

In order to make vital fields available for Mail Merge, we changed labels for some fields in Outlook. Below is a list of all fields and how these data fields will appear in Word Mail Merge.
E-Contacts EP Outlook Comment Notes
General Fields
ID Organizational ID Number renamed
  • Category entries are all in one field with a semicolon between values.
  • Due to restrictions within MS Office, we fundamentally renamed some standard Outlook fields to make them available for Word Mail Merge.
  • Users may use “User fields” (under the “User data” tab in Address Cards) for their custom information.
  • To make their content self-evident, we changed some field labels (e.g. Business Street .. BRU Street)
  • BRU = Brussels; STR = Strasbourg
  • a technically more detailed list of fields is attached to the CSV file document.
Title Title  
First Name First Name  
Middle Name Middle Name  
Last Name Last Name  
Suffix Suffix  
Party Department changed label
Member state Home state changed label
Group Company changed label
EP Position Job Title changed label
Gender Gender  
Birthday Birthday  
EP E-mail E-mail Address renamed
Private E-mail E-mail 2 Address renamed
Brussels fields
BRU Street Business Street renamed
BRU Street 2 Business Street 2 renamed
BRU Street 3 Business Street 3 renamed
BRU Postal Code Business Postal Code renamed
BRU City Business City renamed
BRU Country Business Country renamed
BRU Office Number Office Location changed label
BRU Phone Business Phone renamed
BRU Phone 2 Business Phone 2 renamed
BRU Fax Business Fax renamed
Strasbourg fields
STR Street 1 Other Street renamed
STR Street 2 Other Street 2 renamed
STR Street 3 Other Street 3 renamed
STR Postal Code Other Postal Code renamed
STR City Other City renamed
STR Country Other Country renamed
STR Office Number Location changed label
STR Phone Other Phone renamed
STR Phone 2 Callback changed label
STR Fax Other Fax renamed
Home fields
Home Street 1 Home Street  
Home Street 2 Home Street 2  
Home Street 3 Home Street 3  
Home Postal Code Home Postal Code  
Home City Home City  
Home Country Home Country  
Home Phone Home Phone  
Home Phone 2 Home Phone 2  
Home Fax Home Fax  
User data fields
E-mail 3 E-mail 3 Address  
Language Language 1  
Assistants Name Assistants Name  
Assistant's Phone Assistant's Phone  
Mobile Phone Mobile Phone  
Web Page Web Page  
Notes Notes  
Profession Profession  
Categories fields
Categories Categories  


e-contacts EP
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