Exchange Contact List   

Hi people,

I have a quick question, which I can't find in the technet/MSDN knowledge base..

i) Is it possible to create an Exchange contact list, with a list of non-Active Directory users? I.e. I have a list of corporate contacts we want to put in a public address book, but they are not part of our company. 

ii) I believe it's possible, but I just need to double check - can the Exchange contact information store be extended to hold more than simply contact details? i.e. can I add personalised fields to Exchange forms such as prefrable mailing list details?

Thanks in advance for the help..

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date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 03:36:26 -0800   author:   Lewis Benge

Re: Exchange Contact List   

Hello Lewis,

> i) Is it possible to create an Exchange contact list, with a list of 
> non-Active Directory users? I.e. I have a list of corporate contacts we 
> want to put in a public address book, but they are not part of our 
> company.

You can store three types of contacts in Exchange distribution lists:
    - Active Directory Users / Contacts / Distributions lists
    - Contacts from an Exchange public contact folder or Mailbox contact 
folder
    - So called One-Off contacts, which consists just of a name and an email 
address

So, you have really two options here:
    - Create Contacts in Active Directory to store the information about the 
external contact
    - Store the contacts in an Exchange public folder

>
> ii) I believe it's possible, but I just need to double check - can the 
> Exchange contact information store be extended to hold more than simply 
> contact details? i.e. can I add personalised fields to Exchange forms such 
> as prefrable mailing list details?

You can create new fields on any type of exchange item. However, to 
manipulate them, you need some sort of a GUI. This can either be Outlook (by 
extending the outlook formulars), or a custom solution, which accesses the 
store via one of the possible APIs (MAPI, CDO, CdoEx or WebDAV).

Best regards,
Henning Krause

date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 21:56:44 +0100   author:   Henning Krause [MVP - Exchange]