Outlook 2013 For Dummies

Chapter 14

Big-Time Collaboration with Outlook

In This Chapter

Collaborating with Microsoft Exchange

Understanding all those Address Books

Using Outlook with SharePoint Team Services

Microsoft is a big company that writes big programs for big companies with big bucks. As you’d expect, some parts of Outlook were originally for people at big companies. But these days, people in small organizations also need tools to improve teamwork and collaboration. That’s especially true in a world of far-flung virtual teams whose members communicate almost exclusively via phone and e-mail.

Companies that use Outlook often have a network that’s running a program called Microsoft Exchange Server in the background. Exchange works as a team with Outlook to let you do what you can’t do with Outlook alone. Outlook users with Exchange can look at another employee’s calendar, or give someone else the power to answer e-mail messages on that person’s behalf — any of a host of handy tasks right from a single desktop.

Many features of Microsoft Exchange Server look as if they’re just a part of Outlook, so most Exchange users have no idea that any program other than Outlook is involved. In practical terms, ...