How to sync your global address list to your smartphone

The world is a digital village, and we’re always eager to have the information we need at our fingertips. When we don’t, it can cause a backflow in our schedule and delay our work. Having your global address list synced on all your devices has many benefits, especially for large companies with several employees. By using a reliable service from Sync gal to smartphone, you can guarantee instant automation, ensure all your workers have the contacts they need, and even weed out the ones you no longer need. Read till the end of the article to find out how to do it. 

Determine what you want to sync

The first thing to do before starting any sync operation is to determine what you want to achieve. At this point, you figure out answers to questions like ‘do I want to sync the entire GAL?’ If not, then answer follow-up questions like ‘who do I want in the source definition or who do I want to exclude?’ Knowing the answer to these questions will guide you in the next steps.

Create a mandatory contact list

Once you’ve decided on the right service for you, open the main web administrator. There should be a menu with options that let you explore features like your data dictionary, enterprise portal, Salesforce, etc. The choice you need to click when syncing your contacts is the ‘Mandatory contact list.’ 

Specify who is in the source contact list

Navigate over to where you can add MCL and give the list a specific name like ‘Sales contacts’ or ‘Human resources,’ whatever works for you. If you decide to go with an abbreviation, ensure it is everyone within the organization, or at least the concerned parties can understand. Once you’re through with that, you can move forward by clicking select; you should see a pop-up menu called ‘source-mandatory contact list.” You’re specifying which contacts are in the synced information, so you must select the right group. Before getting to this point, you should endeavor to create a distribution list with pre-listed contacts. Many services will create a space for you to do that when you first set up.  After selecting as many distribution groups as you deem fit, don’t forget to save it.

Specify who will receive the source contact list

A good thing to have at the back of your mind during syncing contact is how sensitive the source list is. Even within an organization, not all information is accessible to every employee; it’s also vital you specify who can see any source contact list you create. Navigate over to ‘target authorized recipients’ to input the correct details. Like in the point above, you can select the target recipient from an already created distribution list. As usual, after picking the right groups, click Save in the pop-up menu. 

Keep the GAL updated.

After determining the source and target list, you can save again to close the MCL menu. You can go back and edit the information as you please, and you can also automate your mandatory contact list so it can back up automatically. You can also refresh the list manually whenever you need to. Automated synchronization is generally preferred because it doesn’t depend on anyone to update it, and you can schedule the update depending on how quickly you acquire new contacts. It’s also essential you give yourself some room to update the list. It’s highly inefficient to keep outdated contacts on your list, so you can input procedures to weed out the unnecessary contacts or even groups. A good time to implement such systems would be after something like an employee review or a new interns’ take. That way, your GAL list is always relevant and reliable.

Avoid duplicates in your address book.

If you’re migrating away from a previous service that was inefficient in syncing all your contacts, but you still have some on your phone, it might be tough deciding what to do with them. On the one hand, it’s not a good idea to get rid of all the ones already on your phone, and at the same time, it’s inefficient to have duplicates cluttering up your address book. The best way to get around this dilemma is to have the new service merge new GAL information with the old ones you already have. The merger will save you the trouble of manually deleting your old contacts (some of which you might still need) but still allows you to add a new list to your address book.

Conclusion 

So that’s all there is to sync your global address list. It’s pretty straight forward when you use an established contact management system that works well between Microsoft exchange or the cloud and your smartphone. You stand to gain a lot of benefits from syncing your GAL like automation, reducing the clutter, and tailoring your target recipients.