Managing Message Analyzer Aliases as Shared Items

The Aliases drop-down list in the global Message Analyzer Tools menu or on the global toolbar contains items that you can share with others. Message Analyzer provides a simple way to expose Alias items to others on your team for sharing purposes, or to retrieve Alias items that others have shared. You can manage your Alias assets in the Manage Alias dialog, from where you can Import or Export an Alias asset collection Library containing one or more Aliases that you select. Any Alias Library that you export is saved as a *.asset file with a name that you specify and any Alias Library that you import can only be of the same type. In addition, you can store an Alias asset collection Library on a user-configured file share or a feed that you create in the Message Analyzer sharing infrastructure.

Exporting and Importing Alias Libraries

To create an Alias asset collection Library for export, you simply select the specific Aliases or categories containing one or more Aliases in the Manage Alias dialog that you want to include in the Library. After you select Aliases and click the Export button, the Save Library dialog displays, in which you can specify Title, Description, Author, and Organization information before you Save the Library in a chosen location.

To import an Alias Library, click the Import button in the Manage Alias dialog and navigate to the directory location where the Alias assets are stored. When you open the Library, you are prompted by the Select Items to Import dialog to choose the Alias items you want to import. You also have the option to specify the Category in which to import the Library items.

Sharing Aliases on a File Share

You can share Alias items directly with others by using the Export feature in the Manage Alias dialog to save one or more Alias items as a collection to a designated file share. You can also use the Import feature in the same dialog to access Alias items that have been shared by others in a similar manner.

Sharing Aliases Through a User Feed

You can also share your Alias items through a user feed that you configure in the Message Analyzer Sharing Infrastructure from the Settings tab in the Asset Manager dialog, which is accessible from the global Message Analyzer Tools menu. Thereafter, you can use the Export feature of the Manage Alias dialog to post your Alias collection items to the feed so that others can access them on the Downloads tab of the Asset Manager dialog. As the asset publisher, if you update your existing Alias items or add others to your collection, you can make them available to team members or other consumers through the configured feed, where they can view, synchronize with, and download your collection items. However, to enable others to synchronize with item collection updates, you will need to perform some manual configuration, as described in Manual Item Update Synchronization.

Downloading Alias Asset Collections from Microsoft

Microsoft also provides a default Message Analyzer feed on the Downloads tab of the Asset Manager dialog that will enable you to download Alias asset collections from a Microsoft web service in a future Message Analyzer release. When available, you will be able to synchronize with asset collection updates that are periodically pushed out by the service.

More Information
To learn more about using the common Manage <AssetType> dialog to share and manage your Aliases, see the Managing User Libraries topic.
To learn more about the Sharing Infrastructure, downloading asset collections, and auto-syncing asset collection updates, see the Sharing Infrastructure and Managing Asset Collection Downloads and Updates topics.