Best way for companywide shared contacts (O365)?

[thecomputerguy]

I have a company that needs to share about 5000 contacts. The way this was done before was to add the account (contacts@contoso.com) to every computer. It was structured like this because people also wanted to be able to add the account to their mobile devices to be able to access the contacts that way as well. Apple mail doesn't support public folders so the only way was to use an actual mailbox to accomplish this.

In my infinite wisdom and laziness I was tired of adding the account every time a new person was onboarded so I decided to remove the account (contacts@contoso.com) from all of the devices and then just grand every user full access to the mailbox on the backend.

The issue here is doing it this way does not allow the user to see the contacts via click the To: button in Outlook. They can only see their own contacts, global address book etc.

What is the best practice for this? Just undo it and manually add the account every time again?

If the solution is to switch from Apple mail to Outlook for iOS then that ain't gunna happen.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Who is maintaining the contact list?

If it's admin, then you've for decades had the ability to deploy Exchange wide contacts, just go add them in the EMC.

But, you can also add the contacts to a team everyone has access to.

Also, the way you've been doing it does work, and they DO show up in the Select Names: Contacts dialog, the user just needs to select the correct address book. YES this will by default be their personal contact list, NO there is no way to change that behavior. Any Address Book stored in Teams is accessed the same way.

*Edit* I glassed over the Apple Mail bit... that's a non-starter. Terrible mail client for Exchange, just doesn't work. If they want to use the fancy toys, they need to get on the stack. Outlook or bust. Only alternative I'll accept is Nine Folders on Android.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

If the solution is to switch from Apple mail to Outlook for iOS then that ain't gunna happen.

Ugh..that'll keep you frustrated....we ONLY support Outlook app for full 365 compatibility, not the "outlook express" bland email client.

 

[callthatgirl]

You would not believe how many shared mailboxes I convert to a regular mailbox, I'd stay as is.