Forum Discussion
Does Microsoft Teams use Global Address List (organization) contacts?
You can search for people in your organisation but there is no address book were you can list all persons in your organisation. You search in the search bar.
You can also search for contacts in your own contact list from outlook. Calls > Contacts > Find a contact
Why there is no address book in Teams like in Outlook? I guess that it has not been requested enough for Microsoft to create it. But there is a uservoice requesting this, vote for it and spread it and Microsoft might consider to implement it.
https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/36949507-team-address-books-and-company-wide-address-book
Forrest_H Thanks for the /org command. I think this is very useful for larger company's. I'm just a 3 user company, so it will only find my 2 employees 😉
Though the /org command will search inside your organisation, it will not show Mail Contacts (the Organisation Contacts). Second, you need to know the name of the person. My complaint was about this:
- I want to see a list, so I can find the person even if I don't know his name or only part of it.
- I want to see my organisation contacts. So I can manage my contacts there and my two employees have access to correct address, phone numbers and mail addresses.
- Microsoft has a central place for it, the global address list, but Teams seems to ignore it (except for the /org command). So even when someone is calling me and their phone number is in my GAL, it will not show these details....
(and yes, I know I can share my outlook contacts with them, but that's not what I want)
Michiel van den Broek I found another setting in the Teams Admin portal. Maybe you can slide this switch to On for Exchange search policy.
I suppose you both are correct. I was thinking maybe it was a setting similar to others that is restrictive if not configured. In the docs referenced above it has;
"For all of these example scenarios (and more), information barrier policies can be defined to prevent or allow communications in Microsoft Teams. Such policies can prevent people from calling or chatting with those they shouldn't, or enable people to communicate only with specific groups in Microsoft Teams."
Regardless, I hope you can find a solution that does want you want.
- Sorry , Did not read that from the above post and assumed you were in a larger tenant. Not sure how you could search for someone without name unless you are searching phone number or e-mail address. It sounds to me like you are trying to establish some sort of Caller-ID or Customer DB for CRM type of use. If you are not adding mass contacts you may be able to implement a workaround using Excel tab or SharePoint List as a tab in the Team.
We ran into similar problems for our staff because Teams does not have any method to import CSV files to establish Contacts or Chat Groups.
I will also tell you that even if the Contact is in your Contacts the identification of calls is very lagging and in-consistent. For example; I have a PSTN calling plan with my Team account and the Microsoft Support number is in my Contacts. However when they call me, the Caller ID does not work and does not indicate the name , just the number. Sometimes it doesn't even update the Call History with the Name until after I have disconnected the call.
