How to Create an Address List

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will reach end of support on April 11, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

 

Applies to: Exchange Server 2007, Exchange Server 2007 SP1, Exchange Server 2007 SP2, Exchange Server 2007 SP3

This topic explains how to use the Exchange Management Console or the Exchange Management Shell to create and apply a new address list. Address lists are a collection of recipient and other Active Directory directory service objects. Each address list can contain one or more types of objects (for example, users, contacts, groups, public folders, conferencing, and other resources). The global address list (GAL) can contain thousands of recipients, and you can create address lists that contain recipients with common attributes to help users in your organization find what they are looking for more easily. Furthermore, address lists are populated dynamically. When new users are added to your organization, they are automatically added to all the appropriate address lists. To learn more about address lists, see Understanding Address Lists.

Before You Begin

To perform the following procedure, the account you use must be delegated the following:

• Exchange Organization Administrator role

For more information about permissions, delegating roles, and the rights that are required to administer Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, see Permission Considerations.

Also, before you perform the procedure in this topic, be aware that the conditions listed in the New Address List wizard are the predefined conditions in the Exchange Management Console. If you want to specify conditions other than the ones available in the wizard, you must use the Exchange Management Shell to create a custom query for the address list. Keep in mind that the filter and condition settings for address lists that have custom recipient filters can be managed only by using the Exchange Management Shell. To learn more about how to use the Exchange Management Shell to create a custom filter, see How to Create an Address List By Using Recipient Filters.

Procedure

To use the Exchange Management Console to create an address list

1. Start the Exchange Management Console.

2. In the console tree, expand Organization Configuration, and then click Mailbox.

3. In the action pane, click New Address List. The New Address List wizard appears.

4. On the Introduction page, complete the following fields:

   Name   Use this text box to create the display name for the new address list. The name can contain as many as 64 characters including wildcard characters, but cannot contain the backslash character (\).

   Container   Click Browse to select the path to the container for the address list. To add the address list as a child to an existing address list, click the existing address list you want, and then click OK. To create a new parent address list, click All Address Lists, and then click OK. For more information about creating parent or child address lists, see Managing Address Lists.

   Include these recipient types   Select the types of recipients for the address list. You can select None, All recipient types, or The following specific types:

   • Users with Exchange mailboxes   Select this check box if you want the address list to apply to users with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 mailboxes. Users with Exchange mailboxes are those that have a user domain account and a mailbox in the Exchange organization.

   • Users with external e-mail addresses   Select this check box if you want the address list to apply to users with external e-mail addresses. Users with external e-mail accounts have user domain accounts in Active Directory, but use e-mail accounts that are external to the organization. This enables them to be included in the GAL and added to distribution lists.

   • Resource mailboxes   Select this check box if you want the address list to apply to Exchange resource mailboxes. Resource mailboxes allow you to administer company resources through a mailbox, such as a conference room or company vehicle.

   • Contacts with external e-mail addresses   Select this check box if you want the address list to apply to contacts with external e-mail addresses. Contacts with external e-mail accounts do not have user domain accounts in Active Directory, but the external e-mail address is available in the GAL.

   • Mail-enabled groups   Select this check box if you want the address list to apply to security groups or distribution groups that have been mail-enabled. Mail-enabled groups are similar to distribution groups. E-mail messages that are sent to a mail-enabled group account will be delivered to several recipients.

   Note

   If your address list contains distribution groups that are not universal, these distribution groups are not displayed when you preview the address list in the Exchange Management Console. To make sure that all distribution groups are displayed when you click the Preview button (as described in Step 6), you must convert the non-universal distribution groups to universal distribution groups. For more information about converting a distribution group to a universal distribution group, see the example in Set-Group.

5. Click Next.

6. On the Conditions page, complete the following fields:

   Step 1: Select condition(s)   Use this section to select one or more conditions for your address list. If you do not want to set any conditions for the list, do not select any of the check boxes. The Introduction page of this wizard allows you to specify the scope of recipients for this address list. Selecting conditions will further restrict the membership of the address list to only those recipients within the scope that match the specific conditions. You can select from the following conditions:

   • Recipient is in a State or Province   Select this check box if you want the address list to only include recipients from specific states or provinces. This information is contained on the Address and Phone tab in the recipient's properties.

   • Recipient is in a Department   Select this check box if you want the address list to include only recipients in specific departments. This information is contained on the Organization tab in the recipient's properties.

   • Recipient is in a Company   Select this check box if you want the address list to include only recipients in specific companies. This information is contained on the Organization tab in the recipient's properties.

   • Custom Attribute equals Value   There are 15 custom attributes for each recipient. There is a separate condition for each custom attribute. If you want the address list to include only recipients that have a specific value set for a specific custom attribute, select the check box that corresponds to that custom attribute.

     Note

     The State or Province, Department, and Company conditions are based on attributes that are applicable only to mailboxes, mail users, and mail contacts. These conditions do not apply to mail-enabled distribution groups. If you configure any of these conditions for an address list, you will in effect be excluding all mail-enabled distribution groups.

   Step 2: Edit the condition(s) (click an underlined value)   If you select any conditions in Step 1, each condition you select will append to the definition of the address list. For example, if you selected the Recipient is in a State or Province check box in Step 1, you will see the in the specified State or Province(s) condition in Step 2.

   For each condition, click the underlined term to create your condition. By default, the underlined term for new conditions will read specified. After you edit the condition, the underlined term will change to the value that you specified.

   If you click an underlined value for the State or Province, Department, or Company conditions, a dialog box appears in which you can specify the values for the condition. To create values for the condition, use the following buttons in the dialog box:

   • Add   Enter a value in the text box and click Add. You can add more than one value, but you cannot enter duplicate values.

   • Edit   To modify an existing value, select it from the list, and then click Edit.

   •    To remove an existing value, select it from the list, and then click .

   If you click an underlined value for a custom attribute condition, a dialog box appears in which you can specify the value for the condition. You can specify a single value for each custom attribute. Type the value in the text box and click OK.

   Important

   The values that you enter in these dialog boxes must exactly match those that appear in the recipient's properties. For example, if you enter Washington in the Specify State or Province dialog box, but the Address and Phone tab in the recipient's properties lists the state as WA, the condition will not be met.

   Preview   Click this button to view the recipients that will be contained in the address list, based on the conditions that you specified.

7. Click Next.

8. On the Schedule page, complete the following fields:

   Apply the address list   Select one of the following options to specify when the address list should be applied:

   • Immediately   Click this button to apply the address list as soon as it is created.

   • At the following time   Click this button and use the corresponding drop-down lists to specify a time to apply the new address list.

   Cancel tasks that are still running after (hours)   Select this check box and use the corresponding text box to specify how long the new address list task will run. The default is 8 hours.

9. Click Next.

10. On the New Address List page, review your configuration settings. Click New to create the address list. Click Back to make configuration changes.

11. On the Completion page, confirm whether the address list was created successfully. A status of Completed indicates that the wizard completed the task successfully. A status of Failed indicates that the task was not completed. If the task fails, review the summary for an explanation, and then click Back to make any changes.

12. Click Finish to complete the New Address List wizard.

To use the Exchange Management Shell to create an address list

• Run the following command to create an address list by using the conditional parameters:

  New-AddressList -Name <String> -Container <AddressListIDParameter> -IncludedRecipients <Nullable> -ConditionalCustomAttribute1 <String>
  

  For example, to create a child address list with the name "Building 34 Meeting Rooms" in the All Rooms parent container, run the following command:

  New-AddressList -Name "Building 34 Meeting Rooms" -Container "\All Rooms" -IncludedRecipients Resources -ConditionalCustomAttribute1 "Building 34"
  

To use the Exchange Management Shell to apply an address list

• Run the following command.

  Update-AddressList -Identity <AddressListIdParameter> 
  

  For example, to apply the address list "Pacific Northwest Mailboxes", run the following command.

  Update-AddressList -Identity "Pacific Northwest Mailboxes"
  

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see the following reference topics:

• New-AddressList

• Update-AddressList

For More Information

For more information about managing address lists, see Managing Address Lists.

To learn more about address lists, see Understanding Address Lists.