Volume 26 Issue 20

Today's Highlights:

• Create Contact Groups using Shared Contacts
• Outlook Room Finder is missing the Calendar

Create Contact Groups using Shared Contacts

A user wanted to create contact groups using contacts stored in a shared mailbox, but was unable to add the contacts because the contacts folder is not listed as an address book.

When you add addresses to a contact group using the address book, you can only add them from accounts in your profile, not from shared mailboxes. This is because the Contacts folder in a shared mailbox is not enabled as an address book (and can’t be enabled as an address book.)

However, you can still create a contact group using those contacts. The contract group members won’t be linked to the contacts, so the Update button will not work as expected (and will likely remove all entries from the list). You’ll need to update the entries manually.

1. Create a custom List view, removing all the columns except for Full name and email address (in this order).
2. Select the contacts you want to add the list. You can use Ctrl+Click or Shift+Click or create a filtered view so you can select all (Ctrl+A).
3. Copy the selection using Ctrl+C.
4. Paste the selection into the Members field in the Contact Group. The first entry will be the column names – Full name Email – you’ll need to delete that line, either after pasting or after Outlook resolves the entries.

You can use the method to create Contact Groups from lists of addresses in Excel or text files too.

I have more information at Create a Contact Group from a List of Addresses

Outlook Room Finder is missing the Calendar

A user needed help:

My computer updated yesterday and now Outlook 2016 no longer shows the calendar of availability with the room finder. I use this tool constantly to schedule meetings at work - not to find a room, but to see availability options for attendees.

Microsoft is updating the Room Finder use a web-based panel and it currently does not support the thumbnail calendar or suggested times feature. You need to set a registry key to revert to the old room finder panel as we wait for Microsoft to add the missing features to the new Room Finder.

You need to use using a June 2021 build or newer version of Outlook.

1. Open the Registry Editor and find HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Options\Calendar
2. Right click on Calendar and select New DWord (32-bit) value.
3. Set the Name to ShowLegacyRoomFinder and press Enter.
4. Right click the new key, select Modify and set the Value data to 1.
5. Close the Registry
   editor and restart Outlook.
6. In Outlook, click File and then Manage COM Add-ins.
7. If Microsoft Exchange Add-in is disabled, enable the addin by adding a check
   to the box beside it.

You need to restart Outlook for the change to take effect.

How to revert the Outlook Desktop WebView based Room Finder to the legacy Room Finder

New & Updated Exchange KB Articles

Cannot log in to OWA or ECP after July 2021 SU for Exchange Server 2019, 2016, and 2013 (KB 5005341)
“Object reference not set to an instance of an object” error and Setup fails in Exchange 2019 CU10 and 2016 CU21

New & Updated Office 365 KB Articles

KB5002984: Configuring Jet Red Database Engine and Access Connectivity Engine to block access to remote databases
Description of the security update for Office 2013: July 13, 2021 (KB5001983)
Description of the security update for Office 2016: July 13, 2021 (KB5001979)

Change your country or region in Microsoft Store
If you change your country or region for Microsoft Store, stuff you got in one region might not work in another.

Sign in to your Microsoft account dashboard
Use your Microsoft account to sign in to Microsoft services like Windows, Office 365, OneDrive, Skype, Outlook, and Xbox Live.

Other Resources

July 2021 updates for Microsoft Office
Microsoft released the following security and nonsecurity updates for Office in July 2021.