Importing Contacts not possible with Exchange?

[jsteph]

Hi all,
We have a public address book on our exchange server. On my machine, in Outlook 2003, I have a personal contacts list. I'm not using .pst files, all my mail, calendar items, etc, are on Exchange.

What I want to do seems very simple, very common, and should be very do-able. I just want to copy either all or a selected group of contacts from the 'Global Address List', which has all users, contacts, etc., into my 'personal' contacts folder. I have looked everywhere in Outlook and this does not seem to be possible. I have all admin rights; and I don't believe it's a security thing. None of the other IT people here know anything about it, and act as if 'why would you want to do that?'

Am I missing something? Is it so odd that I'd want to avoid typing in 600 names so my phone can get them synced? Surely there's got to be a way to do this?
Thanks,
--Jim

 

[ste52653]

I definitely started thinking "why would you want to do that" as well, but once you mentioned syncing with a phone, I get it now.

What software does your phone use? This may have the functionality to do this if it's windows based or Blackberry connect.

There is no really good way to export the GAL, not that I know of anyways. There is a way to do it using POP and Outlook Express if you have the ability to connect via POP to your mailbox. There is more info here, also some 3rd party tools that will help with this.

http://www.slipstick.com/exs/portagal.asp

good luck.
Steve