[stevenyc]

How do most of you get your network's global address list to your users with BES 4.0? My users don't want those entries clogging up their Contacts and they don't like the Lookup feature. When we used Good, we had a public folder with all the addresses that would constantly sync with the handhelds, so I could add, delete or change e-mail addresses and the devices updated automatically. What's the best way to get the GAL to a Blackberry?

[bfrye]

I guess depends on how many are in that list. Our users aren't fond of the lookup feature either, but when you have more than 20,000 entries in the global book, it would make it a little rough trying to sync it.

We simply sync their personal address books, whatever they want to add to it on their own is up to them.

[markn455]

We have the same issue. What we did before BB 4.0 was point everyones desktop manager to look at two folders for their contacts. A public folder which contained a copy of our GAL and their personal folder. With wireless sync and 4.0 software you can only sync with you conatacts folder. 4.0 is a great first attempt for totally wireless sync but it still needs some work.

[stevenyc]

Is there a way to change the default on the handheld to not Allow Duplicate Entries? I've forgotten to change it a couple of times and ended up with real messes to clean up. I'd also like to change the default to be Delete on Handheld and Desktop while I'm at it.

[markn455]

Yes, in the handheld contacts go to options and in there you can set to allow or not allow duplicate names.

[stevenyc]

I know that. I want to set it up so I don't have to manually change it. Duplicate contacts makes no sense to me or my users.

Seriously, has RIM always been like this? I'm literally shaking right now because I'm so stressed. Between all of my executives who are angry that these devices don't do everything their Good units did and RIM's fairly useless tech support, I'm going nuts. Two years ago, I threw the Good software on an old laptop as a test and it's still going strong. Total sync, attachments, GAL, everything just worked. It was the ultimate set it and forget it. The only change I had to make was adding more ram after I found out that it only had half of the minimum requirement. And it ran fine with half the ram. I had to buy another GB of ram just so the Rim server could handle attachments. I've completely set up users on a Good device while on waiting on hold for Rim. It's just been a nightmare.

[markn455]

Others may have an opinion. I have been using RIM BES since the late 90's. Never had any major problems. Had to use tech support a number of years ago and nothing recently. For the most part the sotware is generally stable. This new release has a LOT of strange things going on. I am sure they will get the issues hammered our in the near future. I don't know anything specific, just based on my personal experience over the years.

[stevenyc]

I wish I had your luck. Right now I've got a JVM error on one, no attachments on another, no sync on a third, a server whoese event viewer is overflowing with messages that RIM tells aren't important and shouldn't even be in the event viewer and they hope to fix that soon, and $1500 worth of jazz on my phone.

[greywolfe]

Curiously, what are the specs of the machine that you are running BES on? What version of Exchange?

[stevenyc]

Exchange is 5.5. My Blackberry server is a P4 2.8GHz, 40 GB hard drive, 2 GB of RAM, running 2K Server SP4.

[greywolfe]

Thats the version of cdo.dll on your exchange server? Is the one on the BES the same version? What version of outlook do your users use?

[stevenyc]

The cdo versions match. I went over this with RIM in the one successful call out of my six calls to RIM tech support over the last week.

As for my problems:
The JVM error finally went away after reinstalling the handheld several times. Is this normal? What am I going to do if someone gets the JVM error while they're in China?

I removed and readded the other device to finally get it to sync back over the last few days. What bothers me is that I only started working on this one device because the user had issues relating to the default being set to Delete on Handheld Only. Doesn't having that as a default fly in the face of synchronization?

Nothing I can do about the Event Viewer.

The user can't download attachments b/c evidently this requires a seperate RIM app that somehow didn't get installed on this one device and you can't add it wirelessly. Note to self: When setting up a device make sure all of those pesky little programs get installed. And double check those defaults.

Let's see what happens tomorrow.

[greywolfe]

Remember, emails are *reconciled*, not synchronised. The PIM has full synchronisation.

JVM errors happen and usually an OS reload will fix them. If you are getting repeated errors even after OS reload, it may be a faulty device.

As for event viewer, can you give me an idea of the events that are occuring? Warnings or errors?

Users not getting attachments: run add/remove programs/blackberry desktop manager/modify-repair and make sure the 'Blackberry Attachment Service' is ticked under 'Blackberry Enterprise Server'.

[kp1]

Back to SteveNYC's original question - how are people handling getting the Exchange GAL onto the ver 4 blackberry? I just upgraded my BES to 4, and would like to move to a totally wireless environment - no desktop software for sync. Previously, with the BES 3.6, I had a public folder with the GAL contents, and I would synch each users personal contacts and the GAL from the public folder. What do I do now??? My GAL is only about 500 email addresses, so size is not a concern. And my 20+ users insist on being able to select names from a list - they don't like the "Lookup" feature. Having a copy of the GAL in everyone's contacts (as a subfolder) is an option, but it'll be a headache to update everyone's "personal" GAL everytime the GAL changes. Anyone know of any automated ways to extract the GAL and dump it into everyone's personal Outlook contacts as a subfolder??

[kennyschiff]

We set up a Public Folder that has all of our GAL data, including full contact information. Most of our users have full Outlook client, so we instructed them to cut and paste into their own Outlook contacts list. For the users who are strictly mobile we emailed them vCards.

Not a great process but this works well, especially after the first hit. Now when a new person is added, we just email vCards to the users and they can add the new contacts to their address book by themselves easily.

[simone]

Originally Posted by kennyschiff

We set up a Public Folder that has all of our GAL data, including full contact information. Most of our users have full Outlook client, so we instructed them to cut and paste into their own Outlook contacts list. For the users who are strictly mobile we emailed them vCards.

Not a great process but this works well, especially after the first hit. Now when a new person is added, we just email vCards to the users and they can add the new contacts to their address book by themselves easily.

I see you mentioned that you have done this. Can you please provide the steps you used to setup a Public Folder with GAL data.
Thanks.

[Slipstream]

Hi there, I've been reading this thread with interest for a while now and my apologies for intruding but we have a product called GALSync Server that might be what you're after:

SlipstreamSolutions.co.uk | Products | GALSync Server

It does clog up your Contacts a little but GAL contacts are saved with a GAL category that usually allows for grouping/filtering to tidy things up. And yes, 20,000 might be a little excessive - though 2000-5000 usually works OK and GALSync Server has some filtering rules that allow you to restrict what gets sync'ed.

If you have any more questions I'd be more than happy to answer them here or you can email in via our website.

Thanks for your time!

Regards

Craig Pay
Slipstream Solutions

[forrestc]

We have been trying to figure out something similar for the last few months. Our users were on ACT! (and it was a nightmare to administrate for a 5-person company).

However, moving everyone to Hosted Exchange, we needed a way to maintain the ACT-like functionality of a shared list of company contacts without everyone duplicating entries in their Contacts folder.

The best solution I have found so far is Chapura's FolderMirror (www.chapura.com). It still has some drawbacks..

We will have a Public Contacts Folder on Exchange with all of the "company contacts" and run FolderMirror on each PC. Then I will have to set up each user's Outlook to filter any contact with the special category that Chapura adds - that way, only the user's personal contacts show up in Outlook Contacts, and they know that if a contact isn't there, they have to look in the Public Folder to find it or to make a change to a contact. I will also add the Public Folder as an address book in each user's Outlook so that if they type in a name, and it is either a personal contact or a public folder contact, it will be found when they send the message or hit "check names".

The only problem with this setup is that on the Blackberry, the contacts will all show up - if the user changes a public contact on their device, che change will not be synced back up to the public folder. I have not been successful in finding an application that can sync both ways -and- works with hosted exchange.

If you have a large company, this could be scaled by rolling out the software and outlook changes through whatever method you use for software distribution.

Hope this helps others in a similar situation.

-forrest

[jgurtz]

I have also been tasked with providing instant access to the GAL in an end-to-end way. We are smallish with <150 entries in the GAL. We do not want just anyone updating the GAL contacts so read-only, yet updated GAL contacts are what we are after on the BBs.

My current thought is to have the admins update a public contact folder on exchange (or maybe a spreadsheet/DB table on SQL server?). I will then have a script to update AD from this public folder. Challenge is how to key on the correct userName... For the sync I will develop an outlook add-in that will do a one way sync from GAL->Local Contacts at every start of lookout or if user clicks sync on the toolbar.

I'm a little nervous about having non-IT people having even filtered input into the AD but it will be restricted to only certain fields so It should be OK.

Anyone have thoughts on this methodology?

[DarkWater]

Originally Posted by jgurtz

I have also been tasked with providing instant access to the GAL in an end-to-end way. We are smallish with <150 entries in the GAL. We do not want just anyone updating the GAL contacts so read-only, yet updated GAL contacts are what we are after on the BBs.

My current thought is to have the admins update a public contact folder on exchange (or maybe a spreadsheet/DB table on SQL server?). I will then have a script to update AD from this public folder. Challenge is how to key on the correct userName... For the sync I will develop an outlook add-in that will do a one way sync from GAL->Local Contacts at every start of lookout or if user clicks sync on the toolbar.

I'm a little nervous about having non-IT people having even filtered input into the AD but it will be restricted to only certain fields so It should be OK.

Anyone have thoughts on this methodology?

Well.....

The BES has the ability to perform lookups in your GAL from a handheld, as you probably know. They can email directly from that or save to their handhelds as needed and the lookup always gets the most recent information.

If that GAL information has changed, the user can add it into the handheld and it should be capable of updating the existing record (I'd have to try it to be sure).

If you copy the GAL to the Outlook client then it would sync to the handheld (assuming you have wireless sync setup) but depending on how it treats the records, you may end up with duplicates. You'd have to try it out to see.