iPhone with corporate Exchange PIM and Google PIM - Management of contacts

[marc.garcia]

Hello,

I wonder if anybody knows a way around a current "limitation" on the iPhone (or so it seems to me).

I have a corporate exchange account for professional PIM services. I also have a Gmail account for personal PIM services. I imagine that this setup is quite common among MacRumor users.

How do you guys go about managing your contacts? I know one can easily set up a default location for contacts -in my case it is the Exchange account as it is a corporate phone-, but I don't know how to store contacts on my Google CardAv account. I don't want my personal contacts to be stored on the Exchange server but currently that's the way it is for me.

This sort of strikes me because when you use the other two PIM services like email or calendar, you can always select "how" you want process the event (on which calendar you want to pin up the new event, or from which email adress you want to send off the email you are writting).

Anybody please?? thanks a million in advance,

 

[marc.garcia]

Bump

 

[BrianBaughn]

There must be a reason that Apple chose to do it that way but I don't know what it is.

Other than going to the trouble of switching the default group setting there are some 3rd party apps that can move contacts from group to group.

 

[marc.garcia]

It is actually pretty annoying because I can access my personal contacts and even modify them, and the changes will remain in Google... However, if I want to create a new contact, then I'm stuck with the default location. What app are you talking about? I would be happy to at least be able to move the contact from my corporate exchange account to Google's CardAv service...

Thanks

 

[BrianBaughn]

I'm sorta in the same exact pickle. I've got a domain on Google and recently moved one to Office 365. Your post motivated me to find just such an app but I think I've discovered that Exchange prevents any of them from working for us. Not sure why but it could be a licensing thing? I think the apps don't have read/write capabilities with ActiveSync because of that.

I'm on a Mac about half the time so I can copy or move contacts from Google to Exchange using the Mac's Address Book. It's ridiculously simple in that app and it must be the only one in the world that can do it!

 

[marc.garcia]

Lucky you!! I can't access my corporate exchange from my Mac because they will only publish ActiveSync which is understood by mobile devices, but I haven't managed to configure Apple Mail app to access PIM services. How annoying!

 

[takeshi74]

Do you have access via OWA?

Bump

https://macrumors.zendesk.com/hc/en-us

Bumps. Posts that bring a thread to the top of the New Posts list but add no content to the thread (bumps) are not permitted. This applies not only to posts that say "bump" but to those with the intent to bump, e.g. posts saying "anyone?" or the equivalent. See why and how to avoid bumping.

 

[marc.garcia]

My apologies for bumping the thread. I wasn't aware of that rule, but that doesn't mean I'm not to blame for it

----------

Do you have access via OWA?

Sure but that could be considered as an option because we are on exchange 2007 which won't take advantage of mobile interfaces...

 

[marc.garcia]

Hi, I installed iOS 7 on the day it was officially released. I haven't found any particular difference with regards to what's discussed here, and that is indeed bad news. Can anybody comment on this? I think I may have to settle for switching the default location for contacts in mail/calendar/contacts every time I store a new contact

 

[7enderbender]

I'm actually not sure this is a iOS problem. Any chance that this is driven by your corporate IT policy? I don't have that issue and simply keep my contacts as all personal contacts and have the "contacts" option in my corporate Exchange account turned off. However, my iPhone still finds all contacts in the organization when I start typing a name or email address.

Not sure if that helps. I'm on iOS 6 still and I'm trying to find out what negative impact I may be facing if I upgrade (other than getting used to the ugly colors and layout). I'm mostly concerned about mail and security settings as well.

 

[marc.garcia]

I'm actually not sure this is a iOS problem. Any chance that this is driven by your corporate IT policy? I don't have that issue and simply keep my contacts as all personal contacts and have the "contacts" option in my corporate Exchange account turned off. However, my iPhone still finds all contacts in the organization when I start typing a name or email address.

Not sure if that helps. I'm on iOS 6 still and I'm trying to find out what negative impact I may be facing if I upgrade (other than getting used to the ugly colors and layout). I'm mostly concerned about mail and security settings as well.

Go ahead and update. I doubt you will experience any issues.

Sure you can access your Active a Directory addresses, but what about your own contacts (the ones on,y you have)?

 

[7enderbender]

Go ahead and update. I doubt you will experience any issues.

Sure you can access your Active a Directory addresses, but what about your own contacts (the ones on,y you have)?

Alright alright. Did it. No issues so far. A few things are a little awkward such as the pass code keypad on the lock screen, especially the placement of the "OK" field in the upper right hand corner. Little details like that plus I find the design a bit clumsy. But whatever.

No issues with my contacts. My personal contacts are local on the phone (backed up to icloud I suppose) and those are the default where they are stored.

And my corporate contacts (a list of a few thousand folks) is accessible via the mail app. Maybe not the most elegant way but I certainly wouldn't want the whole enchilada as local contacts on my phone anywhere.

 

[marc.garcia]

Alright alright. Did it. No issues so far. A few things are a little awkward such as the pass code keypad on the lock screen, especially the placement of the "OK" field in the upper right hand corner. Little details like that plus I find the design a bit clumsy. But whatever.

No issues with my contacts. My personal contacts are local on the phone (backed up to icloud I suppose) and those are the default where they are stored.

And my corporate contacts (a list of a few thousand folks) is accessible via the mail app. Maybe not the most elegant way but I certainly wouldn't want the whole enchilada as local contacts on my phone anywhere.

What about the contacts you create on your Outlook/Exchange? I mean, those contacts that you specifically create a contact for, becasue you want to add some information like their mobile phone number, their position, etc., like your providers, or whatever? Do you access them if you do not sync your corporate contacts?

 

[7enderbender]

What about the contacts you create on your Outlook/Exchange? I mean, those contacts that you specifically create a contact for, becasue you want to add some information like their mobile phone number, their position, etc., like your providers, or whatever? Do you access them if you do not sync your corporate contacts?

I don't do that to be honest. All corporate contacts are already there, managed by our IT department. Outside contacts I may add to just my phone book but I almost never do that.

 

[marc.garcia]

I don't do that to be honest. All corporate contacts are already there, managed by our IT department. Outside contacts I may add to just my phone book but I almost never do that.

In my case our IT department also looks after corporate phone numbers. We can access those thousands of records by using the "Global Address Book" located in the Contacts app under Groups. They are not stored locally on my phone. I assume this is what you actually refer to; this Global Address will be invoked from Mail app when you want to access a corporate contact information like their email address. Am I right?

But in my view there 3 sources or kinda of Contacts. Corporate contacts -managed by IT-, Business personal contacts -stored in the Exchange account of one user-, and Personal contacts -gmail contacts-.

Could you try to create one Business personal contact and see if, with your current configuration, you are able to access it from you iPhone?

 

[marc.garcia]

I'm sorta in the same exact pickle. I've got a domain on Google and recently moved one to Office 365. Your post motivated me to find just such an app but I think I've discovered that Exchange prevents any of them from working for us. Not sure why but it could be a licensing thing? I think the apps don't have read/write capabilities with ActiveSync because of that.

I'm on a Mac about half the time so I can copy or move contacts from Google to Exchange using the Mac's Address Book. It's ridiculously simple in that app and it must be the only one in the world that can do it!

I'm happy to report that I have found an app for remote managing Google Contacts. And, man, why on earth almost all the apps are created with syncing in mind??? Out of almost a hundred of hits in the App Store, only two apps seem to do, based on their respective descriptions, what I was after... They are Sebible Contacts and ContactBook.

The former is way too old and does not look too reliable. The latter does the job with some limitations (you can't migrate one contact from the Exchange account over to the CardAv account), but at least it allows me to create and delete contacts directly on my Google Contacts without switching the default location of contacts as was pointed out by someone at some point.

I'm pretty happy with it. There is one thing though that annoys me a little: every time I open the app, it will nag me with a pop-up window asking me to upgrade to the Full version...