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I'm using PowerShell to create mail contacts (external users, not employees) in Exchange 2013 but they are automatically being assigned internal addresses according to the mailbox policies.

For example, I create a contact called "Test User" with an email address "testuser@google.com". The contact is created and the primary address is the google address as expected. In addition, the default policy is applied and adds an address like "tuser@mycompany.com" to the contact's alternate addresses. If I delete it, it's reassigned immediately.

The problem is that 6 months later when I hire an employee who should receive the valid address "tuser@mycompany.com", it's unavailable and he gets "tuser2@mycompany.com". If I re-apply rules strategically, I can give him the address I want and give the contact an invalid address instead but that's a lot of work and it all gets peeled back if another admin re-applies in the wrong order afterward.

So - why are email policies applied to contact objects in the first place? And can you stop that from happening?

Keith
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  • By default, the Default E-Mail Address Policy applies to **all** recipient types. Don't assign "dummy" names to Contacts, such as Test User, etc., use the persons real name, such as Paul Gilbert, Alicia Silverstone, etc. – joeqwerty Nov 23 '16 at 21:08
  • But I don't want to grant my contacts an internal email address. A contact should have an external address for us to contact them at, not take up a limited internal address when I might need it later. – Keith Nov 23 '16 at 21:11
  • And the test user name was just an example. I don't create contacts for people with names and name those contacts Test User. That would be a little nonsensical... – Keith Nov 23 '16 at 21:12

2 Answers2

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You need to change your email address policy to exclude Mail contacts with external email addresses. Apparently you cannot provision a mail contact without the email address policy applying to it, you just have to exclude them from that policy. You can change the setting after the contact has been provisioned but would have to remove the address. Set-MailContact -EmailAddressPolicyEnabled:$False

JBaldridge
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I used the following to create contacts:

New-MailContact -Name "Lastname FirstName" -DisplayName "LastName FirstName" -Alias lastnamefirstname -OrganizationalUnit "OU PATH GOES HERE" -PrimarySmtpAddress "contact’s email address" -ExternalEmailAddress contact’s email address

Using any other method still tagged the contact with the internal address. This has been tested and it works.

Thomas
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Sunny R
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