Contact list management - Microsoft shop

We are using an out of date custom application for managing mailing/contact lists. We are a very small office, an all Microsoft shop. We have Exchange and Windows Sharepoint Services and Office 2007.

I'm looking for thoughts about the best solution for setting up a shared contact list which would be used for mail merges and also simple searches for email/phone.

Sharepoint and Exchange/Outlook both have pros and cons - what are they? Any other options?

Solution 1:

Well you might want to use Exchange Public Folders (Contacts) to store your contacts there.

UPDATE: Microsoft will not retire Public Folders in Exchange 2010. Take a look at this article to learn more about future and possible usage of Public Folders.

As I see it SharePoint approach is much better and it will fit nicely:

Pros:

• available as web application
• list item security
• can be exported to Excel and Outlook
• datasheet edit mode
• mail merge is supported (via Office)
• you can build related list (e.g. connect each contact with account)

Cons:

• creating complicated relationships and tracking your mailings is not supported OOTB. You might wanna consider Microsoft Dynamics CRM or 3rd party solution to do that.
• There is Outlook <> SharePoint integration but each user must enable it manually

Solution 2:

Personally I've just set up a few OUs in AD with AD Contacts for external contacts - which are then put into whatever distribution lists are needed and easily searchable through both Windows and Outlook for the users... I guess what you want is something fancier though ^^

Solution 3:

I would actually go with Public Folders in Outlook.

• The import/export functionality is quick and easy.
• It will take you all of about 5 minutes to set one up.
• Making the contacts available to you in outlook is built in.
• Depending on your network setup, they will always be available. Even without network connectivity.

The one piece that might be a bit problematic is mail merges. I've never used outlook contact lists as a data source. I'm highly confident that you can though.

I'm saying use public folders since they are still available at least in Exchange 2007, and I can't believe that MS will get rid of them that soon.