GAL Federation between different O365 tenants
As organisations grow, or have to separate different business areas in different O365 tenants it would be useful to be able to share or federate global address lists between different tenants. The only current choices are:
Create contact objects in tenants which are then disconnected from the original user - this means if the user details change the contact in the other tenant becomes out of sync.
Where domain federation in in place and directory synchronisation services running for each tenant, create on premise AD users as mail enabled users and ensure each directory sync for each tenant looks at the other domains. This will ensure that user objects are sync'd to the other tenant as mail contacts.
The second method works quite well from a point of ensuring that user details are always accurate with AD objects but only works in an environment where domain federation and dirsync are used. This is not an option in a completely cloud based environment.
Allowing GAL federation/sync between tenants would reduce on premise administrative burden and also provide a solution for cloud only adoption.
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51 comments
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Jim
commented
Even Lotus Notes did this...very easily using something they called Directory Assistance.
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Anonymous
commented
This is a must!
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Anonymous
commented
GAL Federation between two different O365 tenants (hybrid and non hybrid) is become very demanding from our business and hopeful we will have this option very soon
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Walid
commented
GAL Federation between different O365 tenants (hybrid and non hybrid) is become very demanding from our business and hopeful we will have this option soon
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Anonymous
commented
I agree too - we need it between out sister companies.
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DP
commented
Try Azure AD Business to Business. It solves this problem.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/b2b/what-is-b2b -
Anonymous
commented
This is exactly what our business needs as we attempt to join up our various tenants and try to introduce improved collaboration between them.
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Anonymous
commented
our company is in the same situation were we acquired a company but they have not fully transitioned into our o365 tenant and currently have their own tenant. because both of us are o365 environments our solution was to use a 3rd party product called GalSync. the software has worked great but there is a pretty steep cost to the product for just syncing address books. but it does work great and once its setup you really don't have to touch it. it may be worth a look if your company has enough budget to consider it.
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Sharny Yang
commented
I agree. This could be useful between sister companies.
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Kathryn Taylor
commented
If this was available now, my life at work would be so much easier. The looks I keep getting when I explain to staff I can't do it... yet
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Anonymous
commented
I created a script that syncs information (cloud only) https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Sync-contacts-and-create-feea548c
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Drew Love
commented
This feature is exactly the feature that my office is looking for. I work for an Inspector General's office and it is imperative, due to the nature of our data, that we keep it separate from the entity that we oversee. Having this functionality would address 90% of the interoperability issues we have been trying to address for almost 5 years!
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Anonymous
commented
If the GAL is allowed between sites then they also need to add shared administrator support so the admins of groups of sites can assist all sites without having to buy admin licenses for one person to five different sites. I think what people really want is to be able to have multiple tenants and separated billing by tenant under one "Primary" account that controls them all.
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Jeff Canfield
commented
This feature would be very useful.Please add this to your roadmap.
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Dennis Sullivan
commented
We have two divisions of our company using O365 set up as their own tenants, we would like to have Tenant A be able to type a username in Tenant B and get that username in typeahead by accessing a shared GAL from Tenant A
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Pav Bahia
commented
when are MS going to issue a statement of direction on this, As its clearly a major issue
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John
commented
Please! We have wholly owned subsidiary as separate O365 tenant and this would be immensely helpful in bridging communications between the two tenants.
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Dries
commented
Would be very helpfull. Especially for modulair compagnies.
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Pete Afele
commented
With multiple businesses arms of the one organisation set up as separate tenants in Office 365, this feature is vital, and surely, long over due. Management are asking us to look into Google Apps for Business, which we are.
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Anonymous
commented
Will Microsoft enable this feature soon?