Neophyte looking to manage contacts on new server 1

[quolo]

Hi gang. I'm brand new to Exchange, so feel free to dumb it down as much as you like.

I've got Exchange 2000 running on a Windows 2000 Server box. So far my users are working okay and things seem to be on the up and up. It's a brand new server so there's not much to it so far.

My next task is to create a centralized store for our Outlook contacts and make it accessible to everyone in the company. Man, I just can't figure out how to do it.

I created a Public Folder, and the users can see it in Outlook. If I drag contacts into that folder, it posts them as an email message. That's not the solution, obviously.

I've also created a contact in an Active Directory OU, and happily, that contact's email is available to a user when they send an email and look in the Global Address List. Hurray!

But this doesn't allow my users to add or update contacts nor does it seem to store any user information but name and email.

I spent a good, long time searching on the internet for some guidance and haven't found much. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

To summarize, basically I'm looking for a way to allow my users to view a centralized contact list, send emails to something like "Advisory Board" made up of contacts I determine, and, if possibile, add and update contacts themselves.

Thanks,

Jeremy

 

[quolo]

Ah, quick update.

It was as simple as going to that new, Active Directory contact and looking at Properties, but I see where all that information can be populated.

Still, for contacts that already exist on my user's local machines, I'd like to find a way not to have to input this all by hand. But ignore what I said above about a contact only holding name and email.

 

[Evilbart]

hai Jeremy

you were so close!

from outlook : in public folders, create a new folder, eg globalcontacts
folder contains: change to CONTACT ITEMS and not the default mail and post items !

done !
right click on it and give permissions as needed
you might want to check the following setting to : outlook addressbook, and check show this folder as an email addressbook (so you can use it from your to: field)

contacts in AD are not that flexible to maintain but with delegation of control and custom mmc's you can create a solution based on this also, but it is harder to maintain

hope this helped

/Bart

 

[quolo]

It's always the easy stuff, isn't it?

Thanks so very much. Just the little tidbit of information for which I was looking.

A quick follow-up question:

To create a single email for "Advisory Board", I have a couple theories:

1. Create subfolders in "GlobalContacts" and create an Address List to pull email addresses from that folder.

2. Create a custom field in the contact and, in the Address List, query for a string like "Advisory Board".

I've never worked with Address Lists before, but it seems like that's the way to do it, no?

 

[Evilbart]

what you are looking for are DL (distribution lists)

to create a DL for people that work in your organisation create a group through AD users & computers and mail-enable it, then add members to that group et voila: a DL

for DL with people from other emaildomains you can create a DL in your public folder (right clikc, new, DL) (you can add also members from your organisation to make a mixed DL)

hope this helped also ;-)

/Bart

 

[quolo]

Quick question regarding the above - In my Active Directory Users and Computers utility, I don't see my public folders. If I want a mixed DL, do I create the DL elsewhere?

 

[Evilbart]

in public folders you create them from outlook (right click, new, DL

hope this gets your business up & running ;-)

/bart