Contacts

Contacts are objects that serve as pointers to resources outside an Exchange organization. You can think of a contact as an alias that contains an address for that outside resource and rules for handling the transmission of messages. Whenever a user sends a message to a contact, Exchange Server forwards the message to the appropriate foreign messaging system. Contacts have many of the same attributes as mailboxes and can be viewed in the Global Address List.

Creating a Contact

To create a new contact, choose New Contact from the Action menu of Active Directory Users and Computers. This command opens the New Object - Contact dialog box (Figure 9-16). Enter a full name and a display name, much as you would for a typical user.

Figure 9-16: Creating a new contact.

When you click Next, the dialog box shown in Figure 9-17 opens. Enter a display name in the Alias field, click Modify, and select the type of foreign address you want to create. You can also select an administrative group that will hold the contact. If this seems like the same process you used to create a mail-enabled user previously, you are right. In fact, a contact is like a mail-enabled user that does not have the right to log on to the network. When you’re finished, click Next to display a summary page. Click Finish on the summary page to create the new contact.

Figure 9-17: Defining the contact’s e-mail address.

Configuring a Contact

Like all other objects in Active Directory, contacts are configured by means of a property sheet. Most of the tabs for contacts are identical to those for mailbox- enabled users, although contacts have noticeably fewer of them. You will, of course, encounter a number of differences:

• On the Exchange General tab of a contact’s property sheet, you can change the alias and address. You can also set message restrictions. You cannot, however, set storage limits or delivery options, since contacts do not have storage on the Exchange server.

• On the Exchange Advanced tab, you cannot configure mailbox rights, since no mailbox is associated with the contact.

• There is no Exchange Features tab, meaning you cannot configure protocol settings or Mobile Access features for a contact.