The Challenge: Updating Active Directory User Information
In medium and large businesses, users rely on their Exchange / Outlook Global Address List (GAL) to provide them with information (telephone number, address, department, etc…) about other users within their organization. This information is maintained for each user in the Active Directory. If that information is not maintained and kept up-to-date then users are frustrated and less productive.
Even in a smaller organization, an administrator can be
overwhelmed by requests to keep this information
updated.
In the past, the only way a user could update their existing information was to call the help desk or an account administrator and have the information updated. An alternative to this was to use a utility such as
Microsoft’s GALMOD utility from the Microsoft BackOffice Resource Kit or the Exchange Resource Kit. This allows a user to update their Global Address List attributes from within Outlook. However, this utility had to be installed on each user’s desktop. The alternative was for the user to request the updates be made to the user account administrator thus placing an additional burden on the IT Department.
Otherwise a third-party utility must be purchased. The current third-party utilities on the market are full-blown user provisioning systems that are very expensive and have far more features than are required for the simple attribute updates.
Introducing Directory Update
The Directory Update service is a .NET web application written in C# that provides an authenticated user the ability to update some of their Active Directory attributes. Features of Directory Update include:
Improved directory accuracy: City, State, Department, Company, Office, and Country attributes must be selected from a customizable validated drop-down list
Drop-down lists can be converted to text fields and vice versa -
New!
Fields or entire sections can be
hidden from the user interface - New!
Administrator can restrict which attributes can be updated
Customizable help string and help page
Customizable page and window titles
Customizable attribute labels
The user can only update their own attributes; the administrator can specify validated information
(via drop-down lists) for some attributes and prevent users from changing others. Click the image for a larger view.
For more information and pricing, contact MattSuriya @ somorita.com or jmcbee @ cta.net
August 13 - Version 1.1 is coming sooner!
Features include hiding fields, hiding an entire section, and changing
drop-down lists to text boxes
August 16 - We now accept credit cards, see
Purchasing
Documentation
More detailed documentation and information on customizing the interface to suit your organization's needs, see the Directory Update documentation.
Customer Feedback
Happy customers are the best indication that a product is performing as
required!
"We replicate our Active Directory to a central directory service holding
nearly 100,000 user objects world-wide. Once we implemented Directory Update for our
Active Directory, our user information is the only information that is
consistently correct and up to date in the global directory service."
"The telephone numbers in our Exchange Global Address List are actually
correct! Imagine that!"
"Directory Update saves me SOOOOO much time every week"
