For the laptop I exported the contacts to a vcard and uploaded to icloud and going forward anything I enter via the laptop is sync'd. My ipad has nothing unique so it's not an issue.
There are a couple of groups on the phone that were on the phone before I linked everything to icloud. Under settings>icloud, contacts are on - the button is to the right and the area is green. Same obviously if I check under Settings>Mail, Contact, Calendars>Accounts>iCloud. Under Settings>Mail, Contact, Calendars>Accounts>WORK, again the contacts button is shifted to the right and the area to the left is green. The contacts in the WORK account or 2 others set up similarly do not show up on any other device. How do I make these addresses available on my other devices?
BTW - the phone is a 4S running iOS 7.1.1 Thanks in advance