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Vincent Meylof's avatar
Vincent Meylof
Copper Contributor
Aug 31, 2017
Solved

User cannot open shared mailbox in Outlook 2016 - GAL problems

I've got the following problem which really does my head in. 
When a user A shares his inbox in o365 and gives user B full rights to that mailbox, and doesn't show automatically in User B's OWA or Outlook 2016.
OWA: To add the inbox A to user B, we rightclick the username of B in the OWA and select  "Open shared folder". When we start typing the e-mail address of User A, it isn't found. When we send  User A an email and then redo the steps, we can open the Shared inbox and it is shown in OWA.
Outlook: When we try to add Inbox A to User B's Outlook, the error message "The name could not be matched to a name in the address list." and we can never add the shared mailbox to User B.

The address list error message pushes me in the direction of the GAL.
As we're a school we have GAL segmentation enabled and created the following for: 

Staff Addresbookpolicy (ABP): StaffABP which contains: GAL "Org Name", Address lists: "Students", "Staff","Distribution Lists", OAL:"Offline AddressBook", Roomlist "resources"

I guess the error comes forth that the user cannot browse the custom GAL and tries the default GAL, which has no entries. 
My question therefore is: 
How do i populate the custom GAL with all Staff members so that i can find the user to add the shared mailbox in Outlook 2016.

Hopefully my question isn't too vague!

  • I dont think you will be able to make it work in address segregation scenario. It's pretty much the same situation as with mailboxes hidden from the GAL - you cannot manually access them in OWA/Outlook.

5 Replies

  • I dont think you will be able to make it work in address segregation scenario. It's pretty much the same situation as with mailboxes hidden from the GAL - you cannot manually access them in OWA/Outlook.

    • Vincent Meylof's avatar
      Vincent Meylof
      Copper Contributor

      You're right Michev. 
      I've now made a workaround to set the default GAL the GAL for the Address Book Policy for our staff and a custom GAL for the student. Now staff can search the GAL but students can't. Our problems with adding/sharing/looking up the address lists are solved.

      Thanks for your push in the right direction :)

  • Assuming you have Office 2013 or 2016 installed.

     

    1. Open Outlook

    2. Go to File

    3. Go to Account Settings --> Account Settings

    4. This will bring up a new window where you can add the shared mailbox as a separate email account. If you do not want to do this, then continue on....

    5. Double-click the existing email account

    6. Go to "More Settings"

    7. New window appears, click on the "Advanced" tab

    8. Click on "New or Add"

    9. Enter the email address of the shared mailbox

    10. Click OK/Apply/Next

    11. Continue with the Next etc.

    12. Restart Outlook and you should have the additional mailbox visible.

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