Google Apps - Share Contacts within Org

Question

Within our Google Apps Org, I would like to setup a shared contact list that anyone inside our company can access and add/edit the contacts so we have all the same information. What is the best way to go about this?

Answer 1

I would create an application in App Engine that uses the Google APIs to edit the Shared Contacts list. That way you can restrict access to your domain users and also audit the activity that is occurring. There are third party tools out there that can edit the shared contact list but this is typically locked down to avoid situations where users delete contacts they should not be able to. Don't forget that the Shared Contacts list that appears in Gmail's type-ahead has a 24 hour delay.

Answer 2

Hey for anyone out there we used a Google Sheet, now anyone can update the sheet and you can either set an automated trigger to upload them on a schedule or manually push them into the Google Directory.

gsheet:

First we pull all the contacts from the directory then you can add/update/delete existing or new contacts.

Then push them to the Directory using the menu.

We made setup super simple so it auto grabs the user info and domain etc without the user having to do anything

var SHEET_NAME = 'google';
var ERROR_RECIPIENT_MAIL= Session.getActiveUser().getEmail();
var DOMAIN = ERROR_RECIPIENT_MAIL.replace(/.*@/, "");

Then we call the Domain Shared Contacts API to get all the data and put it into an array:

function getAllContacts(){
    var contacts = ContactsApp.getContacts();
    var lastRow = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().
                    getSheetByName(SHEET_NAME).getLastRow();

    if (lastRow >2) SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().
                     getSheetByName(SHEET_NAME).deleteRows(3, lastRow*1-2);

      var contacts = ContactsApp.getContacts();
      var params = {
                     method      : "get",
                     contentType : "application/atom+xml",
                     headers     : {"Authorization": "Bearer " +
                     ScriptApp.getOAuthToken(),"GData-Version": "3.0"},
                     muteHttpExceptions  : true
                  };

      var startIndex=1;
      var data,respCode,resp;
      resp = UrlFetchApp.fetch("//www.google.com/m8/feeds/contacts/"
         +DOMAIN+"/full?alt=json&start-index="+startIndex, params);

      respCode=resp.getResponseCode();
     //SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().
        // getSheetByName(SHEET_NAME).getRange("A10").setValue(resp);
      data = JSON.parse(resp.getContentText());

From there it's then put in the correct fields on the sheet for the user to update. Then the user selects the action from the drop down which calls the appropriate function when the script is run to update.

Example of delete function:

    function deleteContact(contactID,rowNumber){

  var params = {
    method      : "delete",
    contentType : "application/json",
    headers     : {"Authorization": "Bearer " + ScriptApp.getOAuthToken(),"GData-Version": "3.0","If-Match":"*"}
  };

  var resp = UrlFetchApp.fetch(contactID, params);

  var respCode=resp.getResponseCode();

  if (respCode=='201' || respCode=='200') {
    SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName(SHEET_NAME).deleteRow(rowNumber*1);
  }
  else{
    SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName(SHEET_NAME).getRange(rowNumber*1, 15, 1, 1).setValue('ERROR');
    ERROR_COUNT=ERROR_COUNT.toString()+rowNumber;
  }
}

It's pretty cool, and now we are working on bulk data entry as it seems to stall or stop after about 700 contacts in a single run. Also some of the contacts don't get synced and have an error which we'll work on shortly to get the user more info and even store the missed contact to be fixed and updated after. Anyway hope that helps and gives you some ideas.

Ours is located here for anyone interested.