We have a win2000 domain with exchange 2000 and our clients are running xp with outlook 2000. We have hundreds of contacts in our global address list and everyone of the contacts needs to have phone numbers and addressed added to them, instead of just having the email address. I need to be able to give one of our secretaries the ability to edit these contacts. Is there a way I can allow her to edit the contacts straight from outlook on her client machine? Or does she need to be given limited access to active directory? How do I accomplish this?

I would reccomend delegating control of the contacts (hopefully in their own OU), then setting up an MMC taskpad to give to the secretary. You could setup a taskpad to only edit contacts and not open up any other features or views of ADUC.

thanks!

There are a number of third party tools on the market that will do this, also. Namescape has some really good tools (http://www.namescape.com). Also Directory Wizards (www.dirwiz.com), the Dot Net Factory (http://www.thedotnetfactory.com), and Imanami (http://www.imanami.com) These vendors have some really nice provisioning tools for creating/managing/deleting/delegating user accounts via a web page and some good password management tools. The ADUC "task pad" though is an economical way to do it. :-)

Knightly, I would also like to do this! I've done what you suggest but can't seem to get the right combination of delegated access and task pad views& tasks to make this work. Would you mindexpanding on your explanation to include 1.what items need delegating 2.what tasks are needed? For instance, when delegating access in AD,I had to create a "custom delegate task" to allow "contact objects" tobe delegated. Thenwhen I create the task pad view I don't see where I can restrict the view to only contacts. (unless it's through script of favorites). I was only able to choose from specific task like "properties" in which case I would be allowing the delegated user to see ALL tabs & info associated to the account. Any help is very appreciated, Thanks!