Autocomplete from GAL

[moniker]

When I start typing an email to a co-worker, is there a way to get Outlook to autocomplete the email address from the GAL? I know we have this feature turned on in Zimbra....

[jholder]

Hi Moniker,
Welcome to the forums! EDIT:Just realized you had several posts under your belt, so you're not new.

I have forwarded your question on to our outlook team, and you should receive a response soon.

Sometimes, on weekends, it can take longer to get a response, but I promise, your post will be answered.


Sincerely,
john

[paul123]

I also would like this feature in Outlook.
I did a search on this and I think it is a limitation of Outlook. When auto completing addresses in the to field in a message Outlook uses a separate file called a .NK2. It does not allow you to auto complete from the contacts or GAL. This NK2 file is filled out when you send someone a email so it only has previously sent to contacts in it. It is saved in the users profile under Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook and it is named the same as the outlook profile name e.g. zimbra.NK2

There are tools available to edit these files. So you could make a NK2 file with all the GAL emails in it and import it into users NK2 files but this is only a work around and would be pretty static.

http://www.timeatlas.com/mos/Email/O..._AutoComplete/

Is it possible for the Zimbra connector to change this limitation. It would be excellent to be able to auto complete from Gal's

[MidSpeck]

Originally Posted by moniker

When I start typing an email to a co-worker, is there a way to get Outlook to autocomplete the email address from the GAL? I know we have this feature turned on in Zimbra....

I know that you can add a "Directory Service" to Outlook, which can really just connect to an LDAP server to grab e-mail addresses. You set it up very similarly to setting up a new e-mail account. I'm not at a machine that has Outlook installed currently, but you may be able to find some sort of temporary solution by going that route.

Unfortunately, I don't think there would be some sort of automated way to set that up.

[moniker]

Thanks for the info, I'm looking forward to hearing from the engineers about this.

[sam]

If you are using the Zimbra Connector for Outlook, name completion against entries in the GAL will occur.

There's documentation around outlook's name completion here:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ou...496931033.aspx

[paul123]

That isn't the case for me. It only auto completes email addresses I have previously typed, it does not search the GAL or my personal contacts list.

Is there a option I am missing to get this to work?

[sam]

it should work by default. try this:

Tools->Address Book

in the address book window

Tools->Options

What is listed in the list box at the bottom ("When sending mail, check names using these address lists in the following order")?

[paul123]

The list has the GAL first then the contacts.

I don't think this is referring to the actual auto complete function though. This option works when you click the 'to' button and it allows you to search from there but it does not auto complete when you start typing an address on the 'to' field in the main message window. This works in Thunderbird just not Outlook as it uses the NK2 file to store these addresses instead of doing a search in the contacts/GAL.

[sam]

correct, inline autocomplete comes from the nickname cache. outlook will try to match whatever you type after you are done typing one recipients name. IE,

type 'Sam' in the to text field
start typing the subject and message. If outlook can resolve 'Sam' to someone in the GAL, it will do that.

If you want inline auto-completion against the GAL, you'll have to call microsoft for that one as it is an outlook feature.