Microsoft Global Contact Access

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/downloads/global/default.mspx' target='_blank'>http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmob...al/default.mspx</a><br /><br /></div><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/new_email.JPG" /> <i>"With Microsoft Global Contact Access, you can use Pocket Outlook on your Windows Mobile-based Smartphone or Pocket PC Phone Edition to look up contacts in the Global Address List (GAL) on your corporate Exchange server. You can also check your co-workers' schedules to see if they're free or busy, and add multiple recipients to a meeting request. Even if you're away from your office you'll have all the information you need to connect with any co-worker in your organization, and send them e-mail or request a meeting."</i><br /><br />I don't have access to a GAL, but I know for many businesses this will be an important piece of software for their devices. Go grab it!

[Jason Lee]

That's something i'll have to try. it would be nice if it would let you save the gal people to your local contacts.

[Ed Hansberry]

I just installed this today. It requires a bit of forethought to use. First, I had to uncheck "Forms" for it to connect to my server. No clue what "forms" are or what I am missing by having to uncheck it.

Then, you have to decide, are you going to send an email with someone in your GAL? If so, you have to start with this app, add that person or people, then press OK. It transfers the addresses to Inbox and opens a new message preaddressed. Now add others from your contact list and you are ready to go.

I would never use this for someone I email several times a week - I'd just create a contact, but it is great for those you don't often contact, or for people in larger organizations.

Overall, one of the better Power Toys since "Power Contacts" from years gone by. :D

[Ed Hansberry]

Oh, it also finds distribution lists in the GAL. :way to go:

[Philip Colmer]

The page says SmartPhone or Pocket PC Phone Edition only. Does it work on a normal Pocket PC (assuming that Pocket PC has a connection to the Exchange server)?

--Philip

[Ed Hansberry]

The page says SmartPhone or Pocket PC Phone Edition only. Does it work on a normal Pocket PC (assuming that Pocket PC has a connection to the Exchange server)?

--Philip
You can try it. It requires a real-time connection to the server. It cannot be use offline at all. It doesn't pull down the GAL and make a local database.

[Philip Colmer]

The page says SmartPhone or Pocket PC Phone Edition only. Does it work on a normal Pocket PC (assuming that Pocket PC has a connection to the Exchange server)?
It doesn't look like it ... I can't get it to install. The Pocket PC Add/Remove programs window just appears but doesn't do anything.

Shame, really. Guess I'll have to try again when I get my next device.

--Philip

[Ed Hansberry]

I would recommend holding off on this if you have a PDA2K. It makes changes to the NEW menu to allow for tae new search options for addressing and in doing that, somehow it prohibits accessing MMS Settings. Uninstalling it resolved it. :(

[Brad Adrian]

If they can tweak this with the suggestions that've been made here, this could be a very important capability. When I had a Blackberry, having access to the global addess list was VERY helpful. It wasn't any more user-friendly than the one described here, but it was still a good tool to have.

[Jason Lee]

I would recommend holding off on this if you have a PDA2K. It makes changes to the NEW menu to allow for tae new search options for addressing and in doing that, somehow it prohibits accessing MMS Settings. Uninstalling it resolved it. :(

I already have that problem.. HP mobile printing messes up the mms setting option also. I have to do a reg hack to access them. so this really isn't a change for me. :)

[Ed Hansberry]

I would recommend holding off on this if you have a PDA2K. It makes changes to the NEW menu to allow for tae new search options for addressing and in doing that, somehow it prohibits accessing MMS Settings. Uninstalling it resolved it. :(

I already have that problem.. HP mobile printing messes up the mms setting option also. I have to do a reg hack to access them. so this really isn't a change for me. :)
I love my PDA2K, but the MMS application is a huge wart on the device. When it was written, they got the list of "UI Do's and Don'ts" mixed up.

[Jason Lee]

I love my PDA2K, but the MMS application is a huge wart on the device. When it was written, they got the list of "UI Do's and Don'ts" mixed up.

hehe yeah. It is very nice that it is now integrated into inbox but they really should have done a better job of it. As soon as you hit the new button you get thrown into their UI. I think i'd almost like it better as a stand alone app. Oh well, at least it works. Most of the time. ;)

oh and i hate how it strores your folders and it's temp data in HUGE files in the /windows directory. Even if you delete your sent items and empty the deleted items folder the files are still huge. Big waste of space.

aaahh.. back on topic. ;)

This is a great tool for me. After I finally got it to work with our exchange server that is. :)

The Forms authentication is for people who go to their outlook web access page and type their login stuff into the web page. If you go to your OWA and the browser pops up a window asking for your login stuff you will need to uncheck the forms thingy.

The ISA 2004 is for those who's OWA is redirected through some proxie thing.

I work for a university and am not gonna put 30,000 people in my contact database just incase i need to email some faculty member once. This will make my life soo much easier.

[greenmozart]

I configured it correctly but I'm still getting the "Unable to connect to email server" message on my Samsung i730. Too bad their support page doesn't have a support contact! A simple e-mail address would suffice. I have a network connection, can sync over-the-air with my Exchange 2003 server, have unchecked Forms Authentication and ISA 2004, still no go. Bummer... this would be huge! :cry:

[Jason Lee]

I configured it correctly but I'm still getting the "Unable to connect to email server" message on my Samsung i730. Too bad their support page doesn't have a support contact! A simple e-mail address would suffice. I have a network connection, can sync over-the-air with my Exchange 2003 server, have unchecked Forms Authentication and ISA 2004, still no go. Bummer... this would be huge! :cry:

Does your server has OWA (Outlook Web Access)setup on it? It is required.

Microsoft Exchange 2003 Server and a valid Outlook Web Access Exchange e-mail account

[greenmozart]

Yes indeed. I have everything listed in the requirements. However, I have SSL set up for OWA. Would that cause this problem?

[Ed Hansberry]

Yes indeed. I have everything listed in the requirements. However, I have SSL set up for OWA. Would that cause this problem?
Doubtful. Does it redirect automatically to https? Mine does. So entering http://www.company.com/exchange reroutes to https://www.company.com/exchange

If you have SSL and rerouting isn't happening, and the app doesn't know to put "https" in front, it may fail.

[greenmozart]

I have set it up to be accessed directly through a child domain - https://mail.company.com - instead of having to put in the /exchange directory in the URL. It works fine for OWA that way, but I don't have it set to redirect to https automatically if the user omits that. Guess I'll have to figure out how to do that to test it. Thanks, Ed.

[huddie]

Greenmozart, I'm still experiencing the 'could not connect to email server' message. Did you have any luck with this problem ?

[drothjr]

Hi all,

I am running Windows Mobile 5.0 on my Treo 700w from Verizon. I sync to my corporate ES 2003 SBE (in Chicag) by OL 2003 SP2 on my desktop in NY. I can recieve/send email from my phone to my ES 2003 SBE ok.

I can also access OL Web Access (OWA) over the internet ok.

I have Microsoft Global Contact Access installed on my Treo 700w. It keeps giving me a message of "cannot connect to email server" when I try to look up a contact in the company GAB. I am entering my user name, password, domain and server name. I am also checking save password and forms authentication but not ISA 2004.

I am not sure what "form" to put for my username, domain and server name. What I mean is should I be putting the internet-legal server name into the server name? what about the domain? should i be using amplivox or amplivox.local (our company domain)?

Is there some setting in ES 2003 SBE in OWA or OMA which allows PDA access t Microsoft Global Contact Access by my Treo 700w?

Any thoughts are appreciated.

[Jason Lee]

Ooo, good to know it still works with WM5. :) I hopefully will be upgrading soon.

All your settings sound correct.

My username seems to work two ways. I can enter username@domain then leave the domain field blank or just enter username then fill in the domain.

For the mail server:

Say to get to OWA I must go to https://mail.business.com/exchange/
so in the server field i just put mail.business.com
No h's, t's, or p's. Just mail.business.com

That works for me. I'm not sure about your server side settings.
When you log in to OWA you do it from the form in the web page you need the forms mode checked. If when you go to your OWA site and a username/password box pops up you need forms mode unchecked.

Hope this helps some... :)

[SlipstreamSolutions]

Sync your GAL to your mobile device:

http://www.slipstreamsolutions.co.uk/products/mGALSync.htm

Regards

Slipstream Solutions

[Jason Lee]

HAHAHAHA! i can imagine syncing 30,000+ contacts to my pocket pc... 8O

:microwave:

[SlipstreamSolutions]

Although we have tested up to 50,000 entries, realistically a subset of this number does improve performance on the device.

Luckily, GALSync includes a number of user configurable filters to make this possible. Most of the common Microsoft Exchange fields can be used, for example you can include or exclude specific departments, countries or towns.

:wink:

Jo