Separate contact in different (Address Book Policy & GAL)

[nbruneau71]

Hi Guys,

I put GAL in place with 2 differents companies. And now I have an issue with the contacts
some of them can not be seen by either of the companies
any way to affect a contact to an address book policy ?

Thanks for your help.

Nicolas

[#2]

There are no limitations as to adding contacts, just make sure they're covered by the corresponding recipient filters.

[#3]

Thanks Vasil, do you have any examples on how to do it ?

[#4]

Just add them to any of the address lists included in the ABP, by adjusting the recipient filter. Or create a new address list for them. Or adjust the GAL filter.

If it's just a handful of contacts you want to add, listing them explicitly is easy, something like:

(CustomAttribute15 -eq 'Teams') -or (Alias -eq "Contact1")

A better, more scalable approach would be to use one of the custom attributes, or any other query that will cover all contacts you care about, for example:

(CustomAttribute15 -eq 'Teams') -or (CustomAttribute14 -eq "AddToGal1")

[#5]

@Vasil Michev 

Hi Vasil,

ok so the thing is when you create a contact through Microsoft Admin Center, nowhere you can affect a CustomAttribute. (I managed only through PowerShell.

Here are my two ABP :

And here are my AddressList for the contact : 

So right now when I create a contact it goes on both AddressList, I guess that I should add the custom attribute ?

Thanks a lot for your help.

Nicolas

[#6]

If the idea is to "hide" the contact in one of the ALs/ABPs, then yes, add an exception based on the Custom attribute (any attribute that makes sense for your specific scenario really). With the filters you have currently configured, any newly created contact should appear in both ALs/ABPs.

One thing that I forgot to mention and you need to keep in mind is that in Exchange Online, you need to "touch" objects before they appear in ALs: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/exchange/troubleshoot/administration/new-address-lists-not-contains...

[#7]

Hey Vasilec,

Yes I got that my filters are not correct and I could test it :)

What are the best practices if 2 or more companies do not want to share contacts ?
I just do not want to start wrong as some others companies even small might join later.

As for Ressources and Calendars this is not a problem as we can easily even the Exchange Admin Center give them the ABP we want. But with contact...... Not way to get the Attributes

[#8]

Contact objects also support the set of CustomAttributeXX, so just use that to differentiate between contacts that one company should see and the other not. Then create the ALs/GALs/ABPs accordingly.
The more separate companies you have, the more overhead this solution will add. Might be a better idea to remove the contacts from the GAL altogether, and use a Shared mailbox/Public folders to store/share them.

[#9]

@Vasil Michev 

Hi, 

Once again, thank you so much. I find it hard to get an easy documentation about that.

I might look for a training or something like this.

So, we might have in the close future 4-6 very small companies and in long term something like 30.

So it would be best to have it like a Shared Mailbox/Public Folders ?

I know how shared mailbox are working and we have few of them, but how would it work with contact ?

As for Public Folders I don't know at all what it is and how it works.

Would you give me some insight ?

Nicolas

[#10]

You can simply share the Contacts folder from a shared mailbox, users can add it to their Outlook to access the list of contact objects stored therein. Similarly for Public folders, although they're not something you should be investing in at this time: https://blog.quadrotech-it.com/blog/create-a-company-shared-contacts-folder-in-office-365/

[#11]

Hi,

I found this article saying that Microsoft has disabled sharing of contact folder in Outlook Web Access. Is this true ?

This is the article : https://support.intermedia.com/app/articles/detail/a_id/25035/type/KB

[#12]

There is no perfect solution for this scenario, such that works across all the different clients and allows for end users to manage the contacts themselves. You need to weigh in on the pros/cons for each method.