We noticed this week not one but three exciting new (or at least new in the latest version) and very useful things you can do with Google Contacts in Gmail and Google Apps!
- Import Contacts is back
- So is Restore Contacts
- And, a brand new development for Google Apps users, you can now Delegate Contacts
More on all 3 functionalities…
Import Contacts is Back in the new Google Contacts
This is not brand new, but until recently you had to switch to the old version of Gmail to import contacts from Yahoo, Outlook, AOL or other email service, not terribly user friendly. Now you can do it straight from the updated version.
Info on how to import Google Contacts is here. Note that you still need to switch to the previous release if you want to import from a csv.
Restore Contacts is Back in the new Google Contacts
Another not brand new but extremely useful and now available without switching to the prior release. Of course it makes sense to prune your address book (as an average Google Contacts address book is already just under 1,400 entries) with Gmail automatically adding people even if you don’t want to contact them ever again, but sometimes you realize you have overdone it!
…Commercial note, if you are using Evercontact and get a ContactRescue to recover contact info hiding in your older emails, you can make sure you only have easy to find real contacts with whom you have exchanged emails 🙂
Here is more info on how to Restore Google Contacts
Brand new: Delegate Contacts in Google Apps!
And now the exciting new news: You can now delegate contacts so someone else can have access to your address bookif you are using Google Apps. The functionality is a bit limited though:
*You can only delegate your entire My Contacts address book to one or more people in your domain, and there may be some there that you don’t want everyone to see, so this may only be useful for trusted personal assistants.
*You need to be using Google Apps and have your administrator activate the function
Plus, if you are an Evercontact Team Plan user (or become one) using Google Apps, this makes things even better!
Not only are your contacts:
* automatically added from your emails
* automatically only people with whom you have exchanged emails e.g. real contacts
* complete, with phone number, title, company etc automatically identified
* kept up-to-date on any changes
* only professional contacts – those with an email signature
*centralized into one address book and/or your CRM so you can share contacts with your team or company, but …
Now with the Delegate function instead of having to look into the new centralized address book for a particular contact, you can have the contacts be automatically be available in everyone’s personal address book. So this makes the Evercontact Team plans even more convenient and time-saving so you can be even more productive.
More info on how to Delegate Google Contacts is here
So, overall good contact and productivity news for everyone! We hope you find this update helpful!