Forwarding from Exchange to Gmail

[Deskey123]

Hi, i'm looking at migrating our company from our Exchange servers to Gmail (Google Apps-the full suite). I would like to test several users first without modifying or changing any MX records. I would just like for their email to still hit their inbox in Exchange and Outlook but also send a copy to their Gmail inbox. I thought a contact in AD would work but for some reason it's not. I created a contact (with and without an external SMTP address) and went into the user's AD properties under "Exchange General". From there, I went to "Delivery Options", and forwarded to that newly created contact I created. I sent some test emails and they received it in their Outlook but not in their Gmail. Does anyone have any insight on this and could possibly provide any assistance? I can provide more details if needed.

 

[Davetoo]

You have to create a mail enabled contact in AD and have it forwarded to that account.

I'm Certifiable, not cert-ified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

There are no more PDC's! There are DC's with FSMO roles!

 

[Zelandakh]

That should work fine and is the way I have done it successfully in the past.

 

[Deskey123]

Yes, I have created a contact in AD and entered that contact in that user's AD account properties. I selected to forward to that contact and leave a copy in their inbox as well. It doesn't work though and says that the email account in the destination doesn't exist. Remember, we have our own Exchange servers and manage our our external DNS as well. So, currently, we have all our users in our Exchange and only want to test several users on Google Apps. We want their email to hit Exchange and then also go to their Google Apps Gmail. Once testing is successful, we will completely migrate all users off of our Exchange environment and to Google Apps. I know we'll have to change around the MX records to point to Google mail servers. Any info on possible solutions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Zelandakh]

Split this in two. In AD, uncheck the option to deliver to both.

Go to the contact now called "John Smith (at Google)" and verify that the email address is correct.

Now email that person using the GAL. Does it arrive?

 

[Deskey123]

Zelandakh,

I tried both ways you suggested and it still won't forward to the Gmail account. I think it's an issue on their end because I tried the same thing with one of our users' personal Gmail accounts and it worked. Here are the steps;

1. Create mail-enabled contact in AD
2. Access users' properties in AD and point them to that contact and leave a copy of emails on the server as well
3. Send an email to the users Exchange email (user@ourdomain.com). The user should receive in their inbox as well as a forward to our Google Apps business Gmail which is user@ourdomain.test-google-a.com.

If we send a direct email to the Google Apps business email account (user@ourdomain.test-google-a.com) it bounces back stating that the user and domain doesn't exist. The user will receive the email in their user@ourdomain.com inbox. This tells me something as I setup another mail-enabled contact, accessed that users AD properties and forwarded to his personal Gmail account (user@gmail.com) and it worked. The ourdomain.test-google-a.com doesn't work. In your opinion (of anyone else), should I contact Google to see if it's something on their servers? The next question is, how do I contact them?

 

[Zelandakh]

If it goes to personal gmail but not business gmail I'd say there is a setup issue there somewhere!

Sorry, gmail isn't my bag - I use Exchange Server

 

[Deskey123]

Zelandak,

Ya, I think the same. I too am an Exchange person and not Gmail. I've only dealt with Exchange for 10+ years. I would love to push this responsibility on Google as they have the multi-million dollar infrastructure, DR/BCP, backups, redundancy and fault tolerance to support it. I'm hoping someone from this forum can assist me on this as it's eating me up!