Exchange Activesync multiple address books

[DarkBeer]

Received my TB yesterday (finally!). Migrating from a BB Storm and a corporate BES setup. I have Activesync running, and no problems bringing over the mail and calendar items, but our company uses a global address list, and that address book doesn't sync to my TB, just the regular "contacts" one. Is there a way to get all address books from an Exchange server to sync with my TB? Do I need a different app of some sort to do this?

 

[DarkBeer]

Sorry to bump an old thread of mine, but is anyone else dealing with global address list issues with the TB? I got around the issue by creating an extra gmail account, exported the GAL to a csv file, then imported to the extra account and sync'd contacts only. I have a couple of fellow employees that want to get a TB, but IT department says no until they find a solution for the GAL issue. Would appreciate any info on how to fix it.

 

[IronRainier]

I've been using Touchdown for Exchange and that has a GAL. It allows me to search for employees just like my blackberry.

 

[paintdrinkingpete]

I would think you just need to be able to poll the GAL when composing messages to search for names, rather than sync it to the device. (Which is how BES does it).

It's funny when I read this, because I'm an Exchange Admin (among other things) for a very large "organization", and our GAL currently has several hundred thousand entries...would never want to sync that with my phone!!! Your company's is obviously much smaller, but I believe that's why ActivSync isn't made to work like that by default. If the GAL is small enough, could just add all the entries to your personal contacts list or something of that nature?

Sounds like that Touchdown app that IronRainier recommended does what you're looking for anyway...probably just not a feature available with the default Mail app.

 

[DarkBeer]

Our GAL is about 400 people. Guess I don't care if it polls it versus syncs it, but I am used to how it worked with BES as well. I'll probably try Touchdown to see if that works, and see if IT is willing to shell out the $20/person for a key for it. Just seems odd that it handles mail and calendar items fine, but not contacts. Well, not the GAL. It handles my non-GAL contact lists from the same Exchange server fine, which is all the more reason it seems odd to just exclude the GAL.

 

[IronRainier]

Try Touchdown for free first, to make sure it works. I don't think there are refunds if you buy the license key.

The other advantage with Touchdown is that it syncs up tasks (which I use frequently), but I was not able to figure out how the stock Mail app could do it.