Technology

How to use the Global Address List (GAL) in Office 365

Last modified 12/7/2022

The Global Address List, also known as the GAL, Address Book or Contacts is the directory where all of Illinois State University's faculty, staff and student contact information can be found.    

Notice

As of June 20, 2018 student information is now available in the GAL.
What does this mean to you? 
 
Quick and easy access to students’ University email address, making it much easier to find and work with students in the multiple tools Office 365 offers. 
 
This includes:

  • Sending email to students outside of ReggieNet
  • Creating email distribution lists that include student emails
  • Utilizing Skype to collaborate with a group of students
  • Using Microsoft Teams to build student teams, student chat groups as well as share documents with students from OneDrive


How does the Address Book (Global Address List) Work?

From the Outlook 2016 desktop application:

  1.  Open Outlook 2016.
  2.  In the Home tab, near the far right edge of the ribbon, click [Address Book].
  3.  In the Address Book popup, select [Global Address List] from the Address Book drop down.
  4.  Insert the cursor into the Search field and type out the name of the person you are searching for using Last Name first, then First Name (if available).
  5.  Double-click on the person's name to bring up their information.  Each person has the following tabs:
    1. General
      1. Contains basic information about the person, including first and last name, address, city, state, phone, etc.
    2. Organization
      1. If the person is a student at Illinois State University, there will not be anything listed in the Manager and Direct reports fields.
      2. Faculty and staff will have their manager's name and any direct reports (if applicable) listed in the corresponding fields.
    3. Phone/Notes
      1. Contains more detailed phone number information such as business phone, fax and mobile phone numbers
    4. Member Of
      1. Lists all of the distribution groups that the person is a member of.  If the individual is a student, there will not be any group memberships listed.
    5. Email Addresses
      1. Lists the various email addresses associated with the University.  Email addresses ending with IllinoisStateUniversity.mail.OnMicrosoft.com or IllinoisStateUniversity.onMicrosoft.com are not used to send mail to or from.
  6. If you wish to send the person you searched for an email, go to [File] > [New Message] and the message window pops up with the person's name pre-populating the To: field.

From the Office 365 web portal

  1. In a web browser, navigate to Office365.IllinoisState.edu.
  2. Open the Outlook for Office 365 application by clicking on the tile from your Office 365 home page.
  3. In the Search Mail and People field at the top left corner of the application window, type in the name of the person you want to search for (last name, first name or first name, last name works here).
  4. If you click on the person's name, you will see mail sent to or received from that person.  You can narrow the search by selecting the specific folder, specifying a date by week, month or a range of dates, etc.
  5. If you want to view the person's contact information only, click on the contact card icon to the right of the person's name.  From here you can email the person or start a Skype chat or view their LinkedIn page using the icons at the top of the contact window.
  6. Clicking on the ellipses icon gives you the option to add the person to your contacts or "see more" which provides a larger window to view contact information in.
  7. From this window you can view:
    1. Contact
      1. Shows email, phone, job title, department, office location and manager.
    2. About
      1. Contains any information that the person may have shared via their Delve profile.
    3. Organization
      1. Provides an org chart of direct reports down to the person being searched.
    4. Files
      1. Shows a list of files recently worked on and share on SharePoint.
    5. Email
      1. Shows recent emails to and from the person being searched.
    6. LinkedIn
      1. Takes you to the person's LinkedIn profile.