Creating common Address Book w/out ES

C

Curtis Vaughan

We have a number of users using Outlook 2003 on a W2K Advanced Server
through Terminal Services. I need to create some address books that can
be accessed by everyone, but only modified by the administrator (myself)
but without an Exchange Server.

Although we have an LDAP server, Outlook doesn't work well with it.
I also tried sharing out a Contact Folder that I created, but that won't
work, as I understand, when there is no Exchange Server.
So, here is one solution I have been pursuing, but which solution
doesn't seem to work well.

I created the Address Book. Then I exported it to a Template folder that
everyone has access to. Then I copied those files over to the Briefcase
on each person's Desktop. From there I entered them as Archived Folders
for each person. The idea being that if I make any changes to the
Address Book, I save it to the Template folder, then when a user needs
to update their Address Book (which is in an Archive Folder), they chose
to update it in the Briefcase and then open Outlook. It works, but this
is a very clumsy solution.

I would really be interested in ideas people have to resolve this problem!

Thanks!

Curtis
 
S

Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]

What didn't work with LDAP? That's the only native, real-time solution in
the environment you describe.
 
C

Curtis Vaughan

Here's my original post back in August about the problems with LDAP. I
remember somebody replied that I could not do what I wanted to do. But
I can't seem to find that response.

We have Outlook 2003 which is set up to query an outside LDAP server.
Many email clients when querying this server will begin to show you
possible names as you enter the person to whom you wish to send the
letter. That is, say I wish to send a letter to John Downing. I don't
know John's email address, but I know it's on that LDAP server. So I
start typing in Joh.. and I get a list of all names and addresses that
have the combination of joh in them.
I have never seen Outlook (any version) be able to do this. In fact in
my case even if I enter joh, it won't show me possible options from the
LDAP server, even if I click on the Check Names icon. Only if I entered
the full name John Downing will it then show me his entry in the LDAP
server. That's absurd.
I can of course query the LDAP server another way. I have to go to
address book, choose the LDAP server, click on Advanced, then Find, then
enter the letters to query by. The search will then pull up a list of
possibilities.
Also, a lot of email clients will let me enter an asterick in order to
query the entire LDAP database, but Outlook won't.

Is there any way to get the functionality that I am referring to in Outlook?

Curtis
 
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