More than one alias/nickname per user
In Active Directory, we populate the Mailnickname with a single, suitable value (EmployeeId in this case).
When a user goes to outlook, enters the mailnickname (employeeId), Outlook will look in the GAL (and a local cache first, but that is irrelevant to this question). See Example 1.
If we wanted to implement several "mailnicknames" per user, how could that be done? Forget about the specific field "mailnickname", which is a single string property - but some other way to enter one of a series of "mailnicknames"/aliases into outlook - and have it find the right person. See example 2.
Example 1 (standard functionality)
- User: Bob
- Mailnickname(s): {123}
In outlook to-field, I enter: 123 - and it finds Bob's account.
Example 2 (desired functionality)
Properties
- User: Bob
- Mailnickname(s): {123,456,789}
In outlook to-field, I enter: 123 - and it finds Bob's account.
In outlook to-field, I enter: 456 - and it finds Bob's account.
In outlook to-field, I enter: 789 - and it finds Bob's account.
Are there any fields in AD/Exchange, that are suitable for this scenario? Are there other ways to accomplish the same functionality?
Explanation
I can appreciate why this sounds like a strange requirement. I will explain the background.
In the company HR system, people get assigned an ID (123, 456 etc). That ID is then used as their login (samaccountname).
Certain changes in their employment status will trigger that they need to get assigned an additional HR ID to deal with taxes, reporting etc. To avoid the end user having to remember a new ID, having to rename their AD account and a bunch of accounts in other related systems, we keep using their first ID as their samaacountname. We also set this HR ID as a mailnickname.
If I want to send an email to somebody, I will ask for their HR ID and enter it in the to-field, and it will resolve. That works very well, and people outside HR rarely see the second (or third) HR ID.
But on some reports and screens in the HR system, what is visible is the second (or third) HR ID, not the one that corresponds with their samaccountname and mailnickname.
So then the question then is, can we add these second and third HR IDs as some sort of alias, so they would resolve. We already have full integration between HR system and management of AD accounts, so if we can find an exchange/AD way of doing it, implementing it is straight-forward.
Kjensen,
First, I'm not sure why the functionality would even be necessary. Why would some people want to find Bob as 123 and some as 456? Wouldn't that confuse people? If Mary and Jane sit next to each other and Gail comes up and says "you guys know what Bob's email address is?" and Mary says "sure type 123 in the To box" and Jane says "no, you type 456"...I would think users would get confused.
However, there usually is a similar need for something like this. While an Exchange account can only have a single Alias it can have multiple email addresses (proxyaddress attribute), with one being the Primary/Sending address.
With Bob here you would create in his Exchange account multiple SMTP addresses:
[email protected] - Set as Primary
This would give you the Auto-Resolve (not to be confused with AutoComplete) functionality you are talking about.