BlackBerry Forums Support Community

dshearon · 02-23-2005, 10:56 AM

Has anyone ever heard of any intent by RIM to enable access to the corporate GAL other than using the lookup option?

jibi · 02-23-2005, 11:21 AM

would there be a need? considering most of the current handhelds are fairly restricted due to memory issues, why would you want to have that much data on there? assuming they know about it, the GAL Lookup is more than sufficient, imo.

i think they way they have implemented it (keep in mind, this is still fairly new) is the best of both worlds - no memory used; minimal access times to the entire GAL. it may be a few extra steps (not really, depending on the size of the GAL), but i think the good far outweighs the bad.

anyhow, i don't think they will be adding the GAL locally to the BB. thats just my opinion, as i don't see a real legitimate and feasible reason for them to do so.

bfrye · 02-23-2005, 12:50 PM

I guess maybe if you were a smaller org with <1000 entries in your global address book it might make some sense. But it should be pretty easy to push out a new addy book to everyones desktop. Biggest problem I see with that is users will always add personal addresses to their blackberries. How many people you know that use "Home" to call home? Imagine 30 blackberries trying to sync to a global book using home as their home address... think about it.. ;)

smandell · 03-16-2005, 09:43 PM

I'm in the same position as dshearon. I've read tons of forums looking for a solution and the funny thing is i've seen hundreds of posts asking the same question and everytime someone replies with "why would you need that?"

Obviously, there is a demand for it. It would only be a problem in huge organizations. We have 200+ employees and everyone loves having the corporate directory on the BB.

Anyway, the solution I've been using for about a year is:
Exporting the GAL to a contact list in an exchange public folder.
ADD that public folder to the pim sync in the desktop manager.
Voila! Now everyone has our corporate directory on the BB and it doesn't interfere at all with their other personal contacts.

Unfortunately, since upgrading to 4.0 and going completely OTA sync we can't do that anymore because there's no OTA sync with public folders!

Now I'm back in the same boat.

loonews · 03-17-2005, 02:45 AM

I know ya'll probably know this but you are aware of the "find" function right? Just hit the wheel while looking at contacts, then find, then type part of the name, it will search the gal.

If you knew that apologies, but with 15k plus in our gal our users love the features the way it is.

smandell · 03-17-2005, 09:12 AM

The lookup function works ok. The problems are it's an extra step, doesn't work for caller ID, can't browse list for a name you can't quite remember.

If you can't do it quickly while driving and eating a doughnut, it's worthless.

stevenyc · 03-17-2005, 10:49 AM

I feel your pain, smandell. I'm constanyly being bounced back and forth between users asking "Why can't we do this?" and people online asking "Why do you want to do that?" It's very easy to do on a Goodlink server, hopefully RIM will offer it as an option one day.

bfrye · 03-17-2005, 10:55 AM

The word they use is shared address books I think, and as far as everything I've heard they plan it for a future enhancement

kp1 · 05-06-2005, 01:09 PM

I'm in the same "smaller" company boat - 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 25+ 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??

smandell · 05-06-2005, 01:21 PM

I tried to find an automated solution on experts-exchange but didn't get very far.

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Netw..._21353824.html

Steve

avidan · 05-04-2006, 03:10 PM

Good time for a first post. I am in the same boat, 250+ in the company. We have a Public Directory which is a mirror of our GAL (anyone know a way to automate the mirroring?). I am new to BES, so i never got to see OTA synching of the public directories. Does anyone have an option for getting this done? I hate to say it, but my treo users get to have this function with good, there has got to be a way to get this done with BES. I know, I know, there is GAL lookup, but Caller-id is HUGELY missed.

thanks,
avidan

ericwoodford · 05-04-2006, 04:34 PM

I'd suggest looking into one of the many BES - BC (Business Continuity) applications. I was just looking at a iTrezzo's product which looks like it will do just that (replicate GAL to BB devices).

avidan · 05-04-2006, 05:29 PM

i will take a look. but as i am just in trial mode right now, i doubt i will be purchasing new apps to get it to work. is there any way that BES can do public directories?
thanks.

voiceBerry · 06-08-2006, 01:00 PM

Hi,Sir

Would you like to take look at this URL:http://www.mbiztech.com/products_mcontacts.html
or directly to call or send us message. we can talk abouit this issue?

bbgirl · 06-08-2006, 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by avidan

i will take a look. but as i am just in trial mode right now, i doubt i will be purchasing new apps to get it to work. is there any way that BES can do public directories?
thanks.

I remember reading something about this issue. a solution involved public folders and the GAL, I believe the thread was here..somewhere...

avidan · 06-08-2006, 07:01 PM

I am not looking for a paid solution. bbgirl, do you think you remember where on the forums that solution was?
thanks,
avidan

lw1133 · 06-21-2006, 01:58 PM

We are in a similar situation in BES 4.1, the lookup feature is not fast enough for my users. We are looking for a paid solution, we have looked at Wallace and Onset, anyone know of any other companies that makes a solution for an easy access GAL and Pin-to-Pin blasting in case of emergency?

Slipstream · 10-06-2006, 03:40 AM

Sync your Global Address List to your mobile device:

www . slipstreamsolutions.co.uk/products/mGALSync.htm

Regards

Slipstream Solutions

Xaneth · 10-10-2006, 12:14 PM

Fantastic program! Works great when you use the filters. Next step is to somehow sync my contacts with everyone elses. Public folders would be nice, but we're running BES 4.1.