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Exchange public contacts

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by eminent87

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Hi,

As a law firm, it is important for us to keep all of our contacts up to date. We have around 7000 or so contacts in the public folder which reside on exchange 2000. right now everyone has access to the public folder so they can add, edit and delete any contacts that is in the public folder. this setup have caused many problem since contacts get edit or delete accidentally. does anybody knows how to change the permission on there, i have tried doing it through the exchange system admin but it won't let me. anybody have any ideas?

in addition, i want to sync everybody's personal contacts to the public contact list, is there an easy way to do this? my boss want to have a centralize contact list where everyone can have read access toit, this includes everyone personal contacts too. so i was wondering if there's a way to sync the personal contact list to the public one so that it will add any new contacts to the public one and at the same time it will recognize any duplicates. any help or ideas about these issues will be much appreciated. thanks!

11 replies

by shmaltz

To set permissions on Public folders:
Open up system Manager, Right click on the name of your orgenization (the top level item), check the box "Display Administrative Groups", click OK. Expand Administrative group, expand Folder, expand Public Folders, right click on the folder you want to change the permissions and change it.

by shmaltz

I'm sorry, the second line should say: right click on the name of your orgenization (the top level item) and click Properties....

by shmaltz

For your second question, I don't think it is possible. You could however give permissions to see the private address book for other users. If those private address books are saved in *.pst and not on Exchange it might not be possible to give permission for other users to use it.

by eminent87

I have tried that but it wouldn't let me, it gave me the error, "Invalid window handle - ID No: 80040102 Exchange System Manager." Microsoft has a solution for this but I need a utility called pfinfo.exe and pfadmin. Do you have any idea where I can get those tools?

by hogata

Possible answer to qu 1.
This works on Exchange 5.5 not sure about Exchange 2000.
I'd create a contacts folder in the "All Public Folders" called say "Company Contacts" using an Outlook Client e.g. 97/2000. Be sure to login as an administrator. Import/copy all contacts to that folder. Right click and set permissions to full access only to administrator or certain users. Add the "company distribution list" as a user but set it to the equivalent "Author" and make sure "Folder Visible" is ticked. This allows everyone to add, edit and delete only their entries, but view all others.
Useful tips are....make sure Default User is set to "None" AND "Folder Visible" is NOT ticked.... and under "Oulook Address Book" tick "Show this folder as an e-mail Address Book" so that they can pick this contact folder when creating an email.

As for the other questions, if this works, then there would not be any need for regular syncs (there's no way of doing it anyway as far as I can see)....all userscan just copy they personal contacts to the Public Folder ones...any new contacts just create directly to the Public Contacts folder.

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