Microsoft Office is a familiar term for everyone who is exposed to computers. It’s still there with us like an old buddy of ours, who never left our side. The bundle of productive applications it comes with is valuable; we use most of the core apps contained with it, for example, we use a word document to feed the content and save it or an excel sheet to do some basic data storage and filter, or PowerPoint to prepare for a presentation.
On the other hand, Office 365 is a subscription model from Microsoft as a part of the MS Office product line. GAL or Global Address List is one of the features available in Office 365.
So, what does this GAL perform? Why should we use it? If you are a new kid on the block, you need a simple explanation of the feature.
What is GAL (Global Access List)?
GAL is simply a dynamic feature available in Office 365, shared across an exchange organization or tenant to access all the contact data for every associated user. Let’s see how Microsoft officially explains the term,
“The built-in GAL that’s automatically created by Exchange Online includes every mail-enabled object in the organization. You can create additional GALs to separate users by organization or location, but a user can only see and use one GAL.”
Users in an organization can use GAL to find the recipients for email messages with their details. In simplest terms, it’s a list of the recipients within an organization to see each other’s contact. Usually, an organization will have only one GAL list except in the case where multiple groups/companies exist within the organization. These multi-groups won’t get access to see recipient data among each other.
How to create a GAL?
Creating a global access list needs little effort. However, creating a new GAL, editing, updating, or removing can only be achieved using Exchange Online PowerShell.
Now, let’s see how to create a GAL using Exchange Online PowerShell. The admin needs to follow syntax to add GAL with a pre-canned or custom recipient filter. For verification, yet another syntax is to be followed.
Here is detailed information provided by Microsoft regarding the syntax and parameters of GAL.
Users holding an office 365 account can access the GAL from the People App in Outlook on the web or from the Address Book in the Outlook desktop application.
So, the million-dollar question is that, can we access newly added users with the least additional steps from our mobile devices? The answer is a big no, and it isn’t a one-way sync solution we are talking about. It’s a little annoying, don’t you agree with me?
That’s where you need to think about a bridge tool as a much-required solution. Many have come up with solutions; 365mobilesync is one such solution, where a user can access their synced GAL easily from their mobile devices.
365mobilesync for GAL sync
Global address list can be easily synced on mobile devices with 365mobilesync. The GAL sync job reduces the task of losing more working hours of people, especially the employees in an organization devoting their time to sync the contacts every time a new member joins the team.
It only takes a few steps to complete a GAL sync job with 365mobilesync. Also, the process is secure and transparent. The features can be used for quick migration to multi-group contact syncing in an organization.
Many sub-features are available in GAL sync provided by 365mobilesync, see for yourself. Also, you can book a free trial to access the enterprise edition.