LinkedIn toolbar for Outlook

For me it is a bit time consuming to keep my contact list up-to-date. Especially my business contacts. With some I have infrequent contact with, but like to stay in touch with. So I tried the LinkedIn toolbar for Outlook.

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As always the best way to keep data actual is by the source. Most people that use LinkedIn keep their details reasonably accurate. More and more people are adding their pictures, phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Just the kind of things I like to have up-to-date in my contacts.

The downloading of the toolbar is straight forward, just go to http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=outlook_toolbar_download and follow the instructions.

In Outlook you get a new toolbar. The first time a wizard helps you through the whole process.

Well, I'm usually quick at clicking so I don't remember much about it anymore. But, now I'm starting to understand a bit how the LinkedIn toolbar works. Actually pretty straight forward.

It is even easier to link-up with somebody when some emails were exchanged.

More importantly, the Outlook-contacts and LinkedIn contacts and the data now stay in sync. I'm not sure, but there seems to be a delay in the updating, especially in the photos. After a couple of hours, a day then all the items as they are in LinkedIn are in my contacts as well.

To sync contacts with Outlook, just press the Dashboard button and if needed click the Refresh link.  In Contact Updates from LinkedIn all the changes are mentioned. So far the easiest way I found out was to press Review All, check Apply All and press Update or Create. Newly created contacts are stored in Collected Contacts. You have to manually drag all the Contacts you want to add/update to the directory Contacts. Otherwise the new contacts will not be visible in your Contacts.

Added bonus I find is that the photos are added as well. Since my phone synchronizes with an exchange server, all the contact data, including the photos when present, are there as well. Initially I thought, nice gimmick that eats storage memory. But actually quite useful when somebody calls or when I need to find something. The photo just makes it easier.

Update 19/2

LinkedIn for Outlook: http://www.linkedin.com/outlook

• The LinkedIn plug-in has now the option synchronize pictures
• There are some other features as well that I haven't explored