Frequently asked questions about Outlook Social Connector

This article answers some frequently asked questions about Outlook Social Connector (OSC).

Q: Why contacts synchronized from a social network through Outlook Social Connector do not include the middle name?

A: When synchronizing contacts, Outlook Social Connector does not support the middle name field. Therefore all contacts synchronized to Outlook using OSC will not contain a Middle Name value. Please note that the Middle Name field value on the network is not impacted by this Outlook Social Connector limitation.

Q: I have Outlook 2010, but when I try to install a provider it returns an error indicating Outlook Social Connector was not found.

A: If the Outlook Social Connector add-in has been deselected during the installation of Outlook 2010, the provider will not install. To address the issue follow these steps:

• Open the Windows Control Panel, then click Program and Features.
• In the Program and Features dialog box, select Microsoft Office 2010 and then click Change.
• In the Microsoft Office 2010 setup dialog select Add or Remove Features and then click Continue.
• In the Installation Options dialog, click Microsoft Outlook, click Outlook Add-Ins, and then click Outlook Social Connector.
• Select Run from My Computer, and then click Continue.
• Finish the Microsoft Office 2010 configuration process and restart Outlook.

Q: When using OSC on Windows 7, Outlook hangs when I resize a message

A: This is a known issue, and it occurs when the People Pane is manually expanded to its maximum size while using Outlook on Windows 7 Aero themes. It does not occur when using Basic, Classic and Black/White themes.

Should the issue occur, it can be solved with one of the following methods:

• Change your Windows 7 theme to Basic, Classic or Black/White.
• Alternatively, you can do the following:
  • When using any Aero theme, hover over the Outlook icon on the Windows 7 Task bar and click the red “X” to close the mail item.
  • Return to the Outlook main window, click the View tab, click People Pane, and then select Minimized.

Q: When I choose to follow an email recipient on a social network, I receive a failure. Why is that?

A: If the person you are trying to follow is not part of the network you are trying to connect through, then the network returns a “fail” message to Outlook Social Connector. No invite to join the network is sent to the person by the network.

Q: How can I see what my friend's status is in Facebook?

A: When the Facebook provider is installed, your friend's status updates are visible based on the kind of Public Search settings they have selected in their profile in Facebook.

• If a person has made their profile publicly searchable, then you will be able to see their status even if you are not friends.
• If a person has made their profile not searchable, then no status information is returned from Facebook.
• If a person has made their profile searchable to friends only but their email address is not visible to friends, then no status information is returned from Facebook even if you are a friend.
• If a person has made their profile searchable to friends only AND their email address is visible to friends, then that person's status information is returned from Facebook if you are a friend.

Q: I see older pictures of colleagues who I also have in my contacts folder.

A: This is a known issue and only occurs in certain Exchange server configurations. It occurs when the colleague updates their picture in the Active Directory after you have added them to your contacts folder. The Outlook Social Connector does not automatically update the picture in the contacts folder.

Should the issue occur, it can be resolved with the following method:

1. Open up the contact in question.
2. Remove the contact picture, by:
   From Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010:
   • In the Options groupt, click Picture, then click Remove Picture. 
   From Outlook 2003:
   • From the Actions menu, select Remove Picture.
3. Update the picture:
   From Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010:
   • Click the Update button in the ribbon.
   From Outlook 2003:
   • In the toolbar, click Update.
4. 4. Close and save the contact.

Q: I am connected to Facebook, but I am not getting any updates from the Facebook social network.

A: This is a known issue. If you have previously connected to Facebook and now are restarting Outlook, the Facebook provider for the Outlook Social connector will say ‘Connected’ even though you might not have an Internet connection.

Should the issue occur, it can be resolved with the following method:

Make sure current connection to the Internet is working. To verify this, you can do the following:

• Open up an Internet Browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, and so on).
• Visit the Facebook site: http://www.facebook.com (http://www.facebook.com/)
• If the webpage is displayed, you have a connection to the Internet.

Q: I have added a new provider but I don’t see it in the provider list, nor do I get prompted with the Outlook Social Connector Accounts settings dialog.

A: There are some known issues when you might have to manually open the Outlook Social Connector accounts dialog page. If the Outlook Social Connector Accounts setting dialog box is currently opened, close it, and then follow the steps to reopen it.

To do this, there are two ways to open that dialog box.

1. To open Outlook Social Connector account settings:
   From Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007:
   • On the Tools menu, click Social Network Account Settings.
   From Outlook 2010:
   • Select the View tab in the ribbon.
   • Under the People Pane button, select Account Settings.
2. From the People Pane:
   • With the People Pane maximized and in People View, expand the tree and select On another social network.
   • If you do not see the tree, then click the view toggle button in the upper-right hand corner of the People Pane.

Q: I have deleted an Outlook Social Connector provider, but I’m still getting activities listed when I click an email from that person.

A: The Outlook Social Connector stores the most recent peoples’ activities in memory, even after you delete the provider. If you want not to show this information any longer, you just have to restart Outlook.

Q: Activities and contact information do not appear in the people pane for users that have accounts on a social network. Why not?

A: If the email address used to send messages is not registered under account settings for the social network, the user’s activities will not appear in the people pane. If you want your activities to appear for your colleagues at work, add your work email address as an additional email address under account settings for the social network.

Q: I see job title and company information for some users in the people pane, but for other users these fields are missing. What’s wrong?

A: Some users do not provide job title and company information to the social network, so this data is not available in the people pane. When contact information is obtained using on-demand sync, there is an issue with Outlook Social Connector 1.1 that causes job title and company information to be blank in the people pane.

Q: Why do I occasionally see the wrong picture or photo for a LinkedIn user?

A: To address this issue, install the updated Outlook Social Connector (OSC), version 1.1.

    For details on the updated OSC, see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/983403 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/983403) .

Q: My contact pictures in Outlook are not updating from the facebook/linked in photos.  Should they?

A: When you connect to a social network though Outlook Social Connector, your Mailbox Contact folder is never updated to include information from the social networks. Depending on the synching mode used by each provider, the following contact synching behavior can be noticed:
- Providers that use a caching mode will create a separate local contact folder by the same name as the provider (for example "LinkedIn") and sync the contacts from the network into the provider folder.
- Providers that use an on-demand mode (for example "Facebook") will never create a local contact folder. Information about the user is retrieved in real time when refreshing the people pane.

 Q: When I try to install the latest update to Outlook Social Connector, the Facebook and or the Windows Live Messenger provider on Outlook 2010, the following error is returned "The expected version of the product was not found on the system" and the installation is not completed. Why is that?

A: The updates to Outlook Social Connector, the Facebook and the Windows Live Messenger providers require the release version of Outlook 2010. Office 2010 Beta and Office 2010 Release Candidate builds are not supported. To determine what version of Outook 2010 you have follow these steps:

1. Open the Windows Control Panel, then click Program and Features.
2. In the Program and Features dialog box, select Microsoft Office 2010.
3. The version of Office will be displayed at the bottom of the dialog box. The correct version should read "Product Version: 14.0.4763.1000"

Please be aware that both the WIndows Live Messenger and the Facebook provider automatically detect whether the latest update for Outlook Social Connector is installed, and if it is necessary, it prompts you to download and install it before continuing the installation of the provider.