Pre Populate Jabber Contacts

[jmarshall]

Is there a way to pre populate jabber buddy list contacts ?

the problem I'm facing is that some end users are reluctant to adopt IM into their workflow.

I feel that if we were able to at least add an Active Directory distribution or security group into their buddy list and would update automatically, it would greatly improve communication and simplify adding contacts to jabber. Thus making jabber a more attractive solution over MS Lync.

I know Cisco is planning on adding  single sign on in their spring release of jabber 9.2 which is huge. But having a user log into windows and having their department (or predetermined AD group) show up in their buddy list would be perfect. As is, I think that Jabber requires a bit too much of user intervention on the front end. Presence features, telephony integration are excellent. Pushing IM as an office culture has been tough.

[Aaron Harrison]

Hi Jason

Sure - see here:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-21462

Aaron

[jmarshall]

Aaron,

Thanks for the article. It is very informative and will help a bunch. However, using the BAT tool i can populate everyones contacts in bulk but what i am aiming for is active directory groups. That way contacts won't be static and AD groups will update your contact list dynamically. I am pretty sure that Lync does this. I have not evaluated Lync but it would be a shame to run away from Cisco CUPS for that reason alone. I hope Cisco can bundle this option in their next release of jabber client along with single sign on.

[Aaron Harrison]

I've not heard of that feature being mentioned much - but agreed, it would be useful.

[bill.roland]

Unfortunately, central contact management for clients is something Cisco doesn't seem to understand at all.  Prior to rolling out CUPS, we had a freeware OpenFire IM server, and it integrated with Active Directory in a way we could populate everyone's contact lists with contacts from AD, when new people were added, they populated automatically, when they quit/terminated, they removed automatically.  The BAT tool is completely unrealistic for a large organization and doesn't address deleting people who are gone.  Some contact lists around here now have 30 people who are gone.