How to create multiple Address Lists using Exchange 2010

Introduction

The topic of multiple address books is not new with Exchange Servers. Whether your requirement is to organize addresses of different departments in your organization in different address books or to have an external contacts address book for quick reference by company staff , Exchange server can be customized to accomplish that.

Note this article is not about Exchange Hosting in 2010. Currently at the time of posting the article there is no support for Multi-tenant or Exchange Hosting for Exchange 2010 as was with its predecessor Exchange 2007/2003. GAL segregation is not supported in Exchange 2010 as Microsoft is coming out with a different product for Exchange Hosting.

In this article we will discuss on how to create address lists and how to segregate the GAL so that the other address book entries are not visible and searchable. However the user will be able to open the other address book manually and send email to the listed users.

Create Address List

1. Open Exchange Management Console.

2. Under Organization Configuration click on Mailbox

3. Click on Address Lists

4. Right Click on the Address List pane.

5. Click on New Address list.Type the name of the Address list. Let be in the Root Container "/".

6. Click Next. Now you can all apply this policy to specific types of recipients for, eg. users with external addresses, contacts with external email addresses etc. However we prefer to have External Contacts in a specific OU in the Active Directory. We have already created an OU called External Contacts for this purpose.Click Browse.

7. The Select "Organizational Unit" will open up. Select the OU "External Contacts". Click Ok and then "Next".

8. In this page you can key in any Custom Attribute or Conditions that will be used to search the addresses and categorized in this Address List. In this example we are not using any Custom Attribute so click Next.

9. Click Next on this screen as we want to apply the changes "Immediately".

10. Click Next and then "New".

11. Click Finish.

12. In the Address list you can see the External Address Book created.

Configure Address list

1. Now it's time to create contacts in the OU we created which will eventually be displayed in the Address List. To create contacts using EMC open Recipient Configuration and then "Mail Contact". Right click and create a "New Mail Contact". Click on "Specify the Organizational Unit rather than using a default one:" and select "External Contacts".

2. Once the contacts are created they will be visible in the Global Address Lists. Now if you just want to create address lists you are basically done here. When users open Outlook Client they will be able to see the Address List from the Address Book icon as below. As you create more and more contacts they will be visible in the External Address book.

3. Now if you want these Contacts created in the Address List to be invisible in the Global Address List and visible in the newly created Address list "External Address book" you need to do the following steps. This will enable users to open the "External Address Book" and send emails to the contacts but they will not be able to do a "check name" from their Outlook clients.

a. Hide the Contact from the EMC. Open the Contact and click on "Hide from Exchange Address lists"

b. Open ADSI Edit tools we need to edit an attribute of the contact that we just created. Go Edit the Contact that you created and browse to the "ShowInAddressBook" attribute.

Add the following after replacing "Exchange Organization" with that of your own environment and domainname1& 2 with the FQDN name of you AD domain.

CN=External Address Book,CN=All Address Lists,CN=Address Lists Container,CN="Exchange Organization",CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC="domainame1",DC="domainname2"

Click Add and Ok. Once done this will hide the Contact just created from the GAL but make it visible in the External Address book.

Although this is not an Exchange hosting solution on GAL segregation , however companies who wish to separate Address lists on different criteria may use this method to separate Address Lists in Exchange 2010 Servers.