Global Address List (GAL) is one of the important features of Microsoft Office. The feature is on Exchange server and stores contact information of executives, employees, customers, partners, and other stakeholders. GAL is an essential tool for businesses due to its centralizes distribution lists and email addresses. However, the tool is lacking one important function: sync with Android smartphones.
Without the means of synchronizing the GAL with android smartphones, business owners have to use manual workarounds and spend quite a lot of money and time doing this. And this usually leads to productivity and revenue losses. In this article, we are going to look at how to sync GAL to Android Phones, but before that, let’s take a look at the current problems with GAL and smartphones and reasons you need to sync GAL to your Android smartphone.
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Current Problems with GAL and Smartphones
1. The Missing Sync
Currently, the global address list is a view-only solution on Android smartphones. When it comes to synchronizing contact data from the GAL, there is a fundamental gap. You can be more productive if you have the whole global address list on your smartphones. Microsoft probably decided not to include this feature because they want to give each company discretion in allowing access to certain data to individual employees.
2. Manually Push Contacts
It is possible for a central administrator to push contacts through Outlook manually to each person mailbox using ActiveSync. But while you can do this if you have a company that has less than 100 mailboxes, as your company grows, the amount of work you need for this becomes impractical.
3. Can’t Access Contacts Offline
One of the most common workarounds for the global address list is to reverse look-up individuals through the Outlook. Though this method can sometimes be reliable, it can fall apart completely when offline.
4. Updates Are not Automatic
With a manual push setup, pictures or numbers won’t update if you don’t have a central administrator pushing the information to the user’s phone.
Reasons to Sync GAL to your Android smartphone
1. Effectiveness and Time Usage
Several people use their smartphone throughout the day. So, you want to optimize your effectiveness and time syncing GAL to your Android smartphone and using it. When you search for a person of interest by their job title, department, or name, you can’t afford to slow down.
2. Location
If you go the trouble to create lists of your company’s contacts from the vendors, suppliers, to the partners and other stakeholders, then you want to have them ready for use. That means you want GAL to be connected with your business smartphone. For instance, no matter the location that you store these contacts; their value is x. However, storing the contacts on your business smartphone immediately makes the value 10x.
3. Protect Your Company Mission
Almost every company has a substantial number of employees that can only do their job effectively if they can access the internal and external contacts as when required. Syncing GAL to the business smartphone, allow them to access the information immediately from their smartphones. With that, you won’t be bordering your employees with distractions when you can easily solve the challenges with central and automation management.
4. Not a DIY Job
Though you can drag and drop or copy/paste contacts from the global address list to a subscriber at a time, or every subscriber, the process can be filled with errors and put a burden on you. This process usually backfires with great costs.
For instance, have you ever looked for a supplier in your smartphone address book, only to find four entries with different phone numbers? Now, you are left frustrated with figuring out the latest phone number. Syncing contact data manually is nearly a waste of brainpower; your job should be to think and not syncing.
5. Contacts Can Be Managed and Issued Tactically
Companies’ contacts are propriety resources that are valuable and should be carefully managed. For instance, not all of your employees should have contact with the organization’s vendor. Also, not all salesperson should necessarily have all customer’s contacts. Fortunately, syncing GAL to your Android smartphone allows you to easily manage contacts and issue them strategically.
How to Sync GAL to Android Phones
itrezzo Unified Contact management software gives users their copes with the corporate address book. Once the contacts are in your mailbox in Outlook, your android smartphones will sync your contacts. Changes such as additions and deletions are automatically implemented to keep your contacts up to date. You don’t need any additional software on your Android phone or tablet.
On a scheduled basis, itrezzo Unified Contact management sync copy of the global access list to a contact in the itrezzo service mailbox. Then ActiveSync syncs the new changes to your device. During installation, you can configure the itrezzo server by telling it the address booklist to dispense, the employee that should receive the address back, and more.
The address book could be an Exchange Public Folder, Exchange address list, and Exchange GAL. Some of the things you get to do once you installed the itrezzo servers include:
- Sync all the contacts from Public Folders, GAL, spreadsheets, SQL databases, and CRM systems all at once to your smartphone.
- Add new employees to the smartphone users’ group, and they will automatically receive contacts every time you synchronize.
- Avoid syncing unwanted contacts.
- Sync only contacts that changed to users’ phones.