software to manage non exchange mail accounts in Exchange 2007

Question

I am looking for a freeware software to assist me to manage account set-up of external email accounts in MS Exchange server 2010 as I need to add them to a distribution list.

I need to add around 1000 external email addresses to a distribution list in MS exchange.

I would like to know if there is a bulk way to transfer these accounts or any software which can assist and fast track this process as I don't want to set them up individually one by one

Thank you

Answer 1

First you'll need to create 1,000 "Contact" objects in your Active Directory. That's not really too bad to do.

Throw the contacts into a comma-separated ASCII file in the format:

Display name, EmailAddress

So, you might have something like:

"Bob Dobbs", bdobbs@example.com

Once you've got that, here's a PowerShell snippet that will import the file (into a top-level OU called "Contacts").

Import-CSV "contacts.csv" | Foreach { New-MailContact -Name $_.Name -ExternalEmailAddress $_.ExternalEmailAddress -OrganizationalUnit "Contacts" }

Once you've got them imported you can add them to the group, or even pipe that to the Add Distribution Group Member Cmdlet, something like:

Import-CSV "contacts.csv" | Foreach { New-MailContact -Name $_.Name -ExternalEmailAddress $_.ExternalEmailAddress -OrganizationalUnit "Contacts" } |  ForEach {Add-DistributionGroupMember -Identity groupname -Member $_.Name}