Enable External GalSync Contacts for Lync Address Book

I found this article from http://uccexperts.com/enabling-ad-mail-contacts-for-lync/ & used the same procedures for my MIIS based GalSync Solution. Perfectly works. I just did one correction from the original article & added couple of lines here and there. Solution credit goes to original author. Cheers!!

Situation

While working in an environment with multiple Exchange 2010 forests where Forefront Identity Manager was used to realize a common global address list (GAL). Each forest also has its own Lync 2010 implementation without Enterprise voice. Primarily both environment has two different Lync environment with two different SIP Domain.

By default the Lync address book is automatically populated with all objects that have one of the following attributes filled in:

msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress

telephoneNumber

homePhone

mobile

In case msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress attribute is missing, Lync will not able to show presence info for the contact & it may just show a phone icon instead of a person icon/picture.

By default the FIM GalSync synchronizes all those attributes, except the msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress. This caused contacts in the remote forest to appear in the address book with a telephone icon:

This situation caused confusion for our users because they expect the Lync client to work for Instant Messaging with Lync users in the remote forests. When they try to start an IM session with a remote forest user Outlook starts and will created a new e-mail message.

Note: If you see phone icon for those users, make sure to test Federation using their SIP Address directly rather than, default AD Objects. You can add a Lync object to Outlook address book & stamp SIP Address manually & try to test federation.

You can also try out exporting & manually adding/updating this attribute. That should work too. But that will be manual process for future updates too. Using below procedure you can configure GalSync Management Agents to replicate this Lync Attribute too.

Solution

The solution is to include the AD attribute “msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress” in the FIM address list synchronization.

Lab Setup

The overview below depicts my lab setup:

The lab is running Exchange 2010, Lync 2010 and FIM 2010 in a Windows 2008 R2 Active Directory. My environment is MIIS GALSync.

Scope

The scope of this procedure is to add the “msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress” in the local forest to the contact in the remote forest by using the built-in Galsync management agents of FIM 2010. This procedure does not cover the implementation of the Galsync itself.

Presence and instant messaging to the remote forest will only be available when you have Lync Edge servers and federation in place. This procedure focuses on changing the AD attributes so that Lync recognizes the contact as a lync-enabled contact.

PROCEDURE

Step 1: Extend the metaverse schema

1. Start the Synchronization Service Manager and click Metaverse Designer.
   
2. Select person in the Object types pane
   
3. Click Add Attribute in the Actions pane
   
   

4. Click New Attribute in the “Add Attribute to object type” windows
   
   
5. Enter the following information in the “New Attribute” windows:
   

Attribute name	msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress
Attribute type	String (indexable)
Mapping Type	Direct
Multi-valued	Clear check box
Indexed	Clear check box

1. Click OK
   
2. Click OK
   

Step 2: Configure Management Agent of corporate.nl

• Start the FIM Synchronization Service Manager Console and select “Management Agents”
  
• Right click the Management Agent you want to modify and select Properties.
  
• Go to the “Select Attributes“section
  
• Check the Show All box and select the attribute “msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress“, click OK
  

  
  

• Return to the properties of the Management Agent and select the section “Configure Attribute Flow”
  
• Configure this section according to the following table:
  

Data source object type	user
Metaverse object type	person
Mapping Type	Direct
Flow Direction	Export (allow nulls)
Data source attribute	msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress
Metaverse attribute	msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress

• Click New
  
• Verify this modification by collapsing the following header:
  
  
• Check if the following rule is added:
  
  

Step 3: Import modification to the metaverse

• Right click the management agent you just modified and select Properties
  
• Select Run  and do a Full Import and Full Synchronization
  

Step 4: Verify attribute import

• Start the FIM Synchronization Service Manager Console and select “Metaverse Search”
  
• Click “Add clause”
  
• Enter the following clause:
  
  
• Click “Search”
  
• In the “Search Results” pane, right click the user with displayname corporate01 and select Properties
  
• Confirm that the attribute “msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress” contains a value
  
  
• Click Close
  

Step 5: Configure Management Agent of company.nl

• Start the FIM Synchronization Service Manager Console and select “Management Agents”
  
• Right click the Management Agent you want to modify and select Properties.
  
• Go to the “Select Attributes“section
  
• Check the Show All box and select the attribute “msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress”, click OK
  
  
• Return to the properties of the Management Agent and select the section “Configure Attribute Flow”
  
• Configure this section according to the following table:
  

Data source object type	contact
Metaverse object type	person
Mapping Type	Direct
Flow Direction	Export (allow nulls)
Data source attribute	msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress
Metaverse attribute	msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress

• Click New
  
• Verify this modification by collapsing the following header:
  
  
• Check if the following rule is added:
  
  

Step 6: Export modification to the remote forest

• Right click the management agent you just modified and select Properties
  
• Select Run  and do an Full Import and Full Synchronization
  
• Right click the management agent you just modified and select Properties
  
• Select Run  and do an Export
  

Step 7: Verify attributes in remote forest

• Start Active Directory Users And Computers and enable the Advanced features
  
• Go to the OU where the FIM Galsync creates the contacts
  
• Double click the contact “corporate01” and go the the Attribute Editor
  
  
• Confirm that the attribute “msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress” contains a value.
  

What does it look like in the Lync client ?

If I log in as  user company01 and we can see the following result in the Lync client:

In the screenshot above the users in the remote forest have a status of “Presence Unknown”. This is because I did not have Edge servers implemented in my test environment.

If you have implemented Lync Edge servers and you have your Lync federations between both organizations in place, the presence will be shown for the contacts as if they were users in the local Lync organization.