Hosted Exchange - Personal & shared contacts

[Guzzler3]

OK, this is an odd question which I can't quite find an answer for.

We use a hosted exchange server, which each person has their own personal contacts. But we also have a "shared" business contact list which everyone has access to and updates regularly via Outlook

We would like to carry this concept over to our cell phones. That is, when someone adds/changes a contact, they can either put in their personal contacts, or the shared contacts (keeping them separate). When there is a change to the shared contacts, it should be synced to everyone's phone (and in outlook).

The question is... Can this be done with a Windows Phone (Mango or eventually Apollo).

We've been trying to do this with other phones (iOS, Android, but not Crackberry, yet) and we haven't been able to get this work.

 

[naplesbill]

I don't think you can add to the gcl from the phone. I personally would not even allow this if it were possible. The shared contacts should be centrally administered.

You can access the gcl by initiating a search, in email or people, typing a contact name, then choosing the server directory.

Sent from my PI86100 using Board Express

 

[Guzzler3]

Nuts.

It's a small company (<10), so we aren't concerned about the shared list being centrally managed. Most of the time it's updated during the day on the fly by everyone (mainly adds and correcttions, hardly any deletes). We aren't changing the GAL, just a separate contact list.

Apparently before I came on, they had this ability with an older version of Exchange and WM 6.5. But the old IT guy did an Exchange upgrade, and moved them over to Android and it all fell apart. Then the IT guy moved on. The owner want's this ability back.

I can't move them back to the previous Exchange they used (no longer supported). I would like to recommend WP but if can't do it... I'm kind of hoping that WP8 might bring this. I'll just have to wait and see. :straight: