Prerequisites
1. Your Exchange 2010 server needs to be on Service Pack 2 or later.
2. You Exchange 2010 server should not be installed on a GC or DC and especially not Client Access Server
(Address book policies wont work for Outlook but It will work for OWA alone,)
3 Outlook clients should be at least Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010
Step 1 – Create your address lists
Before you proceed it’s important to note that each user can only be in a single address list. i.e. John doe can not be in the London and the Liverpool Address list at the same time.
To assign users/contacts to each list we can either use existing attributes like the “Department” field, or we can assign custom attributes.
To modify the attributes right click on a mailbox in exchange and select properties. Next you can populate the relevent field for the user. In the example below I’m using a custom attribute. The custome attribute button is on the ‘Genral’ tab.
Enter the attribute in one of the free attribute fields. For the policy to work you will need to enter the same text is the same field for every user you want to show in an individual address book. You cannot mix and match which field you put the text in.
Bulk Changes
It’s easy to change mutiple users attributes at the same time. This can be done in the GUI, or it can be done with PowerShell. Just select multiple values and then right click and select properties.
Then go to Organisation Configuration > Mailbox > Address Lists.
Right click and select “New Address List”
Next select the OU that you wish to scope the address list to. Any objects outside of the scope will not be inscluded in the address list.
Next, select the conditions on which the objects will be added to the list. Here, we’re saying, “only add objects to the list that contain “Admin” in the custom1 attribute”.
Complete the wizard.
Step 2 – Create a Policy
Go to Organization Configuration > Mailbox > Address Book Policies
Right click and select “New Address Book Policy”
Next, name the policy and then you need to select the default GAL, OAB and Room List. You can then click the “Add” button and add all the address lists you wish to add to the policy.
Step 3 – Apply the policy to users
Select all users to apply the policy to, and then right click and go to properties. On the Mailbox settings tab select the Address Book Policy option and click properties.
Enable the checkbox and browse for the policy we just created. Select the polcy.
Click OK and the policy will apply to the selected users.
That’s it. Once applied the users will now see a custom set of address lists.