GAL or Server Based Search?

There is always going to be that one person that gets annoyed with how long it takes before the AB is updated with new information from AD…

There are some great blogs on how to speed up the process of Updating the GAL.
Lync will query AD based on the CsUserReplicationConfiguration – ReplicationCycleInterval. By default this is set to 1 minute.

The ABService will then look for updates in the RTC Database based on CsAddressBookConfiguration – SynchronizePollingInterval (default set to 5 minutes)

The Lync Client in turn will Download the updated AD Files triggered at login and initiated by a random time between 1 – 30 minutes. This can be forced to immediate with the RegKey GALInitialDownloadDelay set to 0

The problem is that once the Client is actually running it needs to keep checking for updates. This is done by another random timer between 1 – 60 minutes…Aargghh!!

If you want “Real Time” AddressBook responses you will have to move away from using the GAL and instead query the Lync Server via Web directly.

Chang the CsClientPolicy – AddressBookAvailability to WebSearchOnly (default is WebSearchAndFileDownload)

Set-CsClientPolicy -AddressBookAvailability WebSearchOnly

Rebooted the client to load the new Client Policy, checked in configuration information which now states under Gal or Server based Search: Server Based Search

Once the change has been made you will notice that the Lync User no longer gets the error that the Address Book is updating and search results may be affected as the query is directly to the Lync Web Services.

NOTE
If a user has had a number change BOTH the old and new number shows on the user drop down list for dialing, HOWEVER only the OLD number shows on the Contact Card until the 1:30 AM Sync has run…

Go figure….