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SeeDk

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Exchange 2007: Grant access to another user's mailbox for only specific folders. NOT Full Access.

The reason for the access is User A will be importing contacts to User B's contacts folder.
The only way I've seen this can be done is to give User A access to the entire mailbox i.e adding it in Account Settings -> Email Accounts -> New. Adding it this way displays User B's contact list in the import menu when the user is going through the import steps.

The issue is the user is now set up with Full Access to User B's mailbox to get this working.
I would prefer to give the user access only to the top level of the mailbox folder and the contacts folder. User A doesn't need access even to the inbox.

I've looked around online but all the solution I've found involve giving Full Access. Is there a better way?
Avatar of Lisa Hendrickson "CallThatGirl"
Lisa Hendrickson "CallThatGirl"
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Go to the users contact list in Outlook and right click and go to properties, then there find the permissions tab. There you can find contacts in the GAL (do not use the offline GAL) and add the user to do the importing.

Then go to the users Outlook that is doing the importing and go to "File" in Outlook, "Open & Export" and then "other user's folder" click on "name" and find the the user in the GAL and click on folder type "contacts"

should work. No other access needed.
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SeeDk

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Hi Lisa,

That works to add User B's contacts to User A's 'Shared Contacts' list but I have no access to the Shared Contacts list when trying to do an import.
When I select File -> Open -> Import -> Import from another program or file -> CSV (Windows) -> Select Destination Folder.

I only see my mailbox and the contacts in my mailbox. This is why I added User B's mailbox to User A as mentioned in the OP. When I do that, User B's mailbox is also visible on this screen.
What you need to do is go to User B's contact's properties, got to Permission, add User A and grant Publishing Editor privileges in the Permission Level.  Go to User A's Outlook, click on File, Open & Export and click on Other User's Folder.  In the name, enter User B's mailbox name and for folder type, select Contacts.
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Todd Nelson
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@Mohammed
This is the same suggestion Lisa gave, unfortunately it doesn't work.

@Todd
Thanks for the info, it is on the to-do list and it seems this is possible with newer versions of Exchange.
What version of Outlook are you running?  If you have Outlook 2010 or above, you don't need to use an import process at all.  Once you have User B's contacts folder available on the Shared Contacts list, all you need to do is open User B's contacts list, select the contacts you want to copy. Then right-click and select "Move" from the drop-down; from the "Move" dropdown, select "Copy to folder," select User A's contacts folder and click OK.  If you have a version of Outlook that doesn't have the "Copy to folder" function, you can still use CRTL+C to copy and CTRL+V to paste from one folder to the other.
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My bad, I didn't specify that a requirement is the contacts are coming from a CSV file.

We're going about it this way because of the way the users are managing this process.
They have an Excel spreadsheet full of contacts which they are constantly working on and updating. They want to keep this Excel sheet because it helps them organize the contacts in the manner they like.
They would also like to regularly sync this spreadsheet with Outlook.

I have helped them with converting it to CSV and mapping the fields when imports are needed. It is just the mailbox import portion which I am having problems with because it requires Full Access to import the CSV.
You can give the user Full Access to just the Contacts folder.  Is that what you've tried?
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I've given the user "Owner" access from within Outlook. That's fine for opening the contact list as a 'Shared Contact' but the problem is that Shared Contacts don't appear in the GUI when doing a File Import.
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Have you given the user any top-level permissions to the mailbox itself?  I think you may need to do that at the "Mailbox - User" level in order to allow User A to import contacts into User B's mailbox.  In fact, if you do that, you would be able to create a separate profile for User A that just opens User B's mailbox, with access to the Contacts folder only, and that might make the process easier as well.

Another workaround would be to create a separate subfolder in User A's Contacts folder, import the CSV file to that subfolder and then copy or move (whichever they prefer) the contacts from there to User B's Contacts folder.
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@Lisa
Thanks, that is a possible workaround. The only issue I see if that it increases the time to finish this.
We would have to first import to User A's contacts and then copy from there to User B. Doable but takes twice as long which is significant in this case because User B has thousands of contacts.

@Hypercat
Yes, I did give try giving them 'Publishing Editor' and even 'Owner' rights on the mailbox. But doing that still did not allow them to open the mailbox. Outlook prompts for credentials and their credentials are not accepted. The only way to allow them to open is to give 'Full Access' on the Exchange side.
Your workaround does work (I think its similar to Lisa's), it is just that the time involved to finish would be very long.

It seems Exchange 2007 is limited in this sense and it's not possible to get it working the way I had hoped.
Are there any third party tools which could assist?
For Exchange 2007, you need to use this method for granting full access, the Permissions tab in Outlook doesn't work for this particular purpose:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998707(v=exchg.65).aspx

I don't know of any 3rd party tools that would assist with this particular issue.  Since your external file is a CSV rather than a PST, the options for importing into Outlook are limited.
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Validated on Exchange 2007 and permissions can be granted via Outlook.  Steps are Outlined below:

- Open Outlook.
- Click on Go - Folder List.
- In the Folder List, click on the icon representing the folder that you want to share (e.g Calendar).
- Right click on the chosen folder (e.g. Calendar) and then click on Properties.
- Click on the Permissions tab.
- Click on Add to add the name of the user that you want to grant access to or select Default, select the kind of permission the person you want to share your files with will have and then click on OK.

Opening another user's folder:

Click on File, Open, Open other user's folder and enter the name of the folder where the permission was set
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This can't be done in Exchange 2007