Find info from a contact card in Skype for Business

Sometimes you need to get quick answers to urgent questions about a contact: How can I find out when they'll get out of their meeting? Can I block out time on their calendar now so I can talk to them as soon as they're available? How do I reach someone else in this person's work group? Who is his or her manager? Can I connect with this person some other way—maybe on a social networking website? You'll find answers to these and other questions in one place: the contact card. That's where you'll go to find out who someone works with and works for, whether they'll be around later in the day to talk to, how to reach them by phone or at a second email address, and so on.

Let's start by explaining how to view contact card, then we'll talk about all the things you can do with it.

Open a contact card from the Skype for Business Contacts list

• Find the contact in your Contacts list, then hover over the contact's picture (or presence icon if pictures aren't shown in the Contacts list), and then click the See Contact Card button.

Open a contact card from Office programs

You can open a contact card from within other Office programs, anywhere you see a person's picture or a person's name with a presence icon.

• Point to the contact's picture (or presence icon next to a person's name), and then click the down arrow to open the card.

Send an instant message, start an audio or video call, or send email

Open the person's contact card (as described earlier), then do one of the following:

• To send an instant message, click either the instant message button in the Quick Start toolbar (to right of the picture).

  

• To start an audio call, click the audio call button in the Quick Start toolbar. Or, pick up a phone, and dial the contact at one of the phone numbers they have listed.

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• To start a video call, click the video call button in the Quick Start toolbar.

  

• To send an email message, either click the email button in the Quick Start toolbar and then click Send an Email Message.

  

Schedule a meeting with a contact

1. Open the person's contact card.

2. On the Contact tab, under Calendar, click Schedule a meeting.

3. Complete the meeting request information, and then click Send.

View a contact's organization

• Open the person's contact card, and click Organization (located directly under the Call button). You can click the listing for anyone in the organization to view the contact card for that person.

Pin or unpin a contact card on your desktop

When you pin someone's contact card to your desktop, the card remains open so that you can quickly view the person's information or contact him or her.

• To pin a contact card to your display, open the person's contact card, and click the Pin button in the upper-right corner of the contact card.

• To unpin the card, click the pin button again, or, to unpin and close the card, click the Close contact card button (X).

Use other contact card options

The contact card gives you these additional options for interacting with or learning more about a contact:

• To hear the contact's name pronounced (available if the contact has recorded his or her name in Outlook), click the sound button next to the contact's name.

• To add the contact to one or more of your Skype for Business contact groups, click View more options (...) > Add to Instant Messaging Contacts, then select from the drop-down menu the group(s) you want to add the contact to.

• To display the contact's social network updates (if you're friends with them on a shared social network or if their updates are public), click the What's New tab.

• To display the distribution lists the contact belongs to, click the Membership tab.

• To request that Skype for Business notify you when the contact becomes available, click View more options (...) >Tag for Status Change Alerts.