Outlook Web Access Addressing Shortcut: Avoiding Ambiguous Name Resolution

Here is a handy little shortcut for you Outlook Web Access users out there, one that I use all the time. 

Frequently I will type in the full alias of someone in the address book and expect it to resolve directly to the person I want. Let's say for example, the alias is “toshm” and this is who I want to reach, but there's also a “toshme” in there. The result is that you get the ambiguous name resolution dialog (what we on the team call the ANR dialog) popping up, asking you if you want “toshm” or “toshme”. This can get old after a while if you mail this person all the time, but there's good news. You can prefix an equals sign to the alias like “=toshm” and have it resolve directly to name you want. Pretty cool.