The Offline Address Book:

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Potential Addressing Problems for Outlook Users:

When an individual moves from using Gatorlink to having an Exchange mailbox (or vice-versa), people using Outlook with Exchange accounts usually will have issues corresponding with them.

Assuming that Outlook is in Cached mode (the default and preferred setting):

1. If a sender had been sending successfully to them in the past, then they will have an incorrect autocomplete entry. The address will appear just as always, but the end result will be a "Undeliverable: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)" returned from "System Administrator":

   Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.
   
         Subject:	
         Sent:	5/9/2007 10:59 AM
   
   The following recipient(s) could not be reached:
   
         'AlwaysWorkedBefore@ufl.edu' on 5/9/2007 10:59 AM
               The e-mail account does not exist at the organization this 
               message was sent to.  Check the e-mail address, or contact 
               the recipient directly to find out the correct address.
               
   

   This, in itself, is easy to correct. If you have a mistyped address in your cache (i.e., you start typing and Outlook suggests an entry) you can use the arrow keys to select the address and press Delete to remove it. More complete details are available on how autocomplete functions.

2. If a sender had not sent to this individual before (therefore, no cached autocomplete entry) and types in the proper email address correctly, then the message STILL will not be delivered. If the sender tries to use the address book and pull the address via the displayname (i.e., lastname,firstname or some truncated portion thereof) either via "Check Name" from our Exchange GAL (Global Address List) via the Address Book--they will not find an entry. If the sender goes into the advanced search within the Address Book and uses the alias field to locate the entry by entering the gatorlink username of the individual (i.e., the portion before the @ in the address) they will finally find what looks like a successful entry; however, sending to it will not be successful. The problem will correct itself within about 24 hours.

   Note: If Exchange rebuilds its OAB at a predictable time, we could speed things up a bit by informing users how to download the new address book anytime after the next scheduled rebuild.

   Cached mode cannot see a new or changed mailbox until Exchange builds a new one--even if you "download the address book". If you delete the *.oab files in C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook you can force Outlook to use the GAL directly and the Address Book and "Check Name" procedure will appear to function correctly; however, Exchange obviously still uses the incorrect X400 record that it has stored previously in the OAB and the delivery fails.

On-line mode fixes the lookup itself basically, though you can still have bad autocomplete entries--even multiple ones which appear identical unless opened to see the details. It still cannot send, however, until Exchange next rebuilds the OAB. I had thought this was not the case, but my testing indicates that it is. I cannot explain how one would ever be able to send to a new mailbox until the new OAB is constructed by Exchange.

Note: All of this is very confusing to sort out and I cannot guarantee 100% accuracy of the above descriptions. It is, however, what was observed during a testing session with Dwight Jesseman on 9 May 2007 and may help IT folks better understand the issues involved.