Our agency currently uses an Outlook public folder to access all contact info. This seems to be desirable because folks can access the info remotely.  Has anyone used RE for this purpose? I know that RE can sync w/Outlook, but it doesn't seem to sync w/a public folder...any ideas?  One of the considerations is to purchase an additional database and "somehow" sync that back and forth w/RE, which seems like a nightmare to me. I'd like to be able to sync all relevant constituents to a contact list where everyone can have read-only access. All contacts to be entered into RE, and then dumped into outlook on a schedule.

I've never tried synchronization before but it sounds pretty cool.

Here's a detailed guide: http://www.blackbaud.com/files/support/guides/re7/office_integration.pdf

An alternate solution would be to set up a simple export of all the contact info to an Excel spreadsheet. Unless you need the info in Outlook for a specific reason.
 

The synchronization tool provided by RE is excellent and simple to use. Set up a query of the constituents who should be included. Mapping is fairly limited, but in addition to the contact fields, we use Outlook's Job Title to track position fields, and Company to hold which Chapter a member is affiliated with.You can also synchronize Actions, which can be a powerful tool for extending this RE functionality with other departments who do not have access to the database itself.

Set the synchronization to update when you open Outlook each day, and compares the records for changes that have been made either in RE or Outlook, and gives you an opportunity to make decisions on any conflicts before directing the changes to occur. As the RE Administrator, I've set the synchronization up on a separate Contact Folder in my own Outlook File, and shared the contact list throughout the organization. The synchronization only occurs on my machine, but any changes made to the shared contacts are included in the synch.

It's an invaluable tool for our organization!

andy, I was intrigued by this post.  However I can't seem to get the RE stuff to end up in a separate Contact Folder.  It wants to dump directly into my Contact Folder.  i would like to keep them separate if I can.  I've tried creating a new Contact Folder and then setting up the options on that.  Can you point me in the right direction?