Share Contacts in Office 365 Groups

[Daniel Velez]

I'm not seeing an option to share Contacts Lists in Office 365 Groups.  Are there any plans to add this?

Thanks...

[#2]

Sorry can you be a bit more specific as to what you're hoping to achieve?
Are you wanting to create a contact list inside of an Office 365 Group that people can access?

[#3]

We had a SharePoint site that includes documents, calendars and a contacts list of external resources.  The list was connected to Outlook 2016 People list, so users had easy access to those contacts, and modify phone numbers or address, so everyone had the right information. 

We are moving the Sharepoint site to Groups, but I can't find how to work with the contact list.  Any suggestions?

[#4]

Gotcha. Well the good news is that SharePoint team sites now integrate with and sit on top of Office 365 Groups. The feature is currently being rolled out globally.
So if browsing to your Group you should see a "Home" button which would then take you to the SharePoint site. If it's not there - it will be over the next month or so.
Once that is there you can set up your contact list.

[#5]

That's good to know.  What are the options in Office 365 Groups to share a Contacts List, a part from SharePoint?

Danny

[#6]

As it's using SharePoint it is the same level of functionality, it's just that now it's connected to Groups.

[#7]

Forgot to ask, would I see the Contacts List in the Outlook Groups mobile app?

[#8]

I don't think so, but probably within the SharePoint mobile app.

[#9]

Correct, you will be able to connect to the Group site using the SharePoint App and access to any list created there

[#10]

Any plans to have an actual shared contacts list like there are in shared mailboxes?

[#11]

I think this is really good idea. It would be extremely helpful to have shared contacts under Office 365 groups like Shared Mailbox. 

[#12]

Agreed - having group Contacts along with Inbox and Calendar would be super useful, along with the ability to sync / edit those group contacts on a mobile device.

A basic use case I had recently was a law firm using a group for each case they were handling - each case has a number of contacts (counsel, court clerk, complainant, opposing counsel, etc. They wanted to be able to access those contacts from Outlook on PC & Mac, as well as via iPhone.

Using SharePoint contact list, you cannot sync to Outlook for Mac, and there is limited native sync functionality for mobile devices - e.g. the contacts would not show up in the addressbook on a phone, so callerID doesn't work, etc.

[#13]

I couldn't agree more - This is the exact sort of functionality our company is needing right now.  Most of our company is non-technical and it needs to be as simple as possible. 

[#14]

I agree that this is a great idea. In the past we would have created a public folder for the contacts but groups provides better (and easier to manage) security and contacts would make sense there. If a company is not using SharePoint this can be a huge learning curve when all they want to do is set up a shared contact list (I have several companies I work with that only want that). the groups are easier to learn and it is often transparent to the users. We have a calendar for the group so a set of contacts that are relevant to the group membership makes sense. 

[#15]

+1 for having a contacts list in groups.  All of the other options mentioned are just sort of a 2nd rate work around compared to what contacts for groups could be.  I'm amazed that there aren't more people clamoring for this.  Microsoft already has a calendar for groups, so why not contacts?

[#16]

I have to chime in here a second time as I went back on this thread and read through it again. Has anyone here ever set up a contact list in SharePoint? OMG that is the UGLIEST thing I have seen in a long time. It looks like it was made in an HTML 101 class. I mean great that it's SharePoint and all that but most users get a blank stare when you say SharePoint. The contacts folder in Outlook they understand and that is what they want to use. When I created Public folders they looked the same as their contacts folder and that depreciated technology. 

Don't get me wrong. I love SharePoint and I try to push clients towards it every day but this is an uphill battle. Groups are the logical place to have a list of contacts that are specific to that group. Please for the love of little green apples make this simple. Elegant is not always the right solution. People are used to using Outlook. Don't make them go somewhere else just to see a contact and get the email address or phone number to go back to Outlook again to send that email. Design the product the way people WANT to use it and not as you think they should use it.