Exchange Server, Exchange Server 2013, Outlook, Social Connector

Block Syncing of Personal Phone Contacts in GAL through Social Connector

I have received a question on Exchange 2013 about the syncing of personal contacts in Outlook on GAL. For example, a user that has their own personal iPhone contact were uploaded to GAL. Obviously, a lot of users don’t like that (having their personal contacts loaded into the company directory).

During the research on ‘How do I block or stop the syncing of personal contacts with Exchange 2013 so they do not show up in outlook?’ I have found as ‘Social Connectors‘ are playing the game and automatic update of contacts are enabled by default.

How to change the settings?

In Outlook 2013 Social Network Account can be seen here:

social

 

 

 

 

In Outlook 2010: Go to View-> People->Account Settings->Settings button. Change the option from ‘Update without prompting’ to ‘Prompt before update’ or ‘Never update’

In Outlook 2003 or 2007: Account Settings can found at Tools, Social Networking Account settings

The registry settings are found at the following section:

Outlook 2013

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\SocialConnector
DWORD: RunAutomaticGALSync
Possible Values:
         0 (Never Sync)
         1 (Update without Prompt)
         2 (Prompt to sync)

Outlook 2010

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\SocialConnector
DWORD: ScheduleContactGALSync
Possible Values:
         0 (Never Sync)
         1 (Update without Prompt)
         2 (Prompt to sync)

Bulk Operation

We were talking about individual accounts and most of the time it requires to work on multiple users and GPO is the way for that. Change the Outlook settings via GPO will help.

The GPO can be found as applied at the following section:

Outlook –> Outlook Social Connector-> Block Global Address List synchronization

HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\outlook\socialconnector
DWORD: disablecontactgalsync
Value: 1 (no sync)
Hope this will find help you to understand and Control a Social Connctor in your organization