Office 365 - hiding/fudging mobile numbers for Admin on the global address list

[sonofsanta]

Has anyone found a good way of getting round mobile numbers being displayed in Office 365? Admin accounts (i.e. IT Support) are required to provide a mobile number in case of password reset requests, but this number is then listed in the contact card. I don't want people having access to my mobile number - staff or student - so we've removed our accounts from the Global Address List. This is causing grief in different ways, though, so I'd like to reinstate us to the address book.

 

So: is the mobile number really necessary? It'd take a hell of a set of circumstances for all 4 of us to forget our passwords, and the admin password, and lose access to the encrypted password database kept off site, and if all that did come to pass then Office 365 won't be our main priority. Can I just fudge it with 07000000000 for all of us?

 

Alternatively: is there a way of configuring Outlook/Office 365 to not show the mobile field in contact data? I couldn't spot anything in the GPO, but if there's a reg hack I can push out by GPP I'm all ears.

 

Gotta be honest, it makes sense in a business environment, but it's a bit of a daft set of circumstances for a school having staff mobile numbers visible by students! (even though we all know it'd be the teachers taking advantage )

[Mr.Ben]

We got around this by having a single admin account and hiding the account from the GAL. As we have Dirsync this wasn't as straight forward as I would have liked. We had to extend the local AD schema with exchange attributes, then we could set the 'hidefromaddresslist' attribute, which would be synced up to Office 365.

[sonofsanta]

We got around this by having a single admin account and hiding the account from the GAL. As we have Dirsync this wasn't as straight forward as I would have liked. We had to extend the local AD schema with exchange attributes, then we could set the 'hidefromaddresslist' attribute, which would be synced up to Office 365.

 

That's how we're hidden at the moment (we had Exchange onsite so our AD already has the attributes). The idea of a single admin account makes me nervous though, too many stories round here about people locking themselves out of their 365 :/

[AngryTechnician]

Get a single work mobile on PAYG and use that number for everyone. Lock it away so it can't be used maliciously, but just remember to use the phone every few months so it doesn't get cut off. Edited March 25, 2014 by AngryTechnician

[Boredguy]

Our primary admin account is not DirSync'd, and just has the main school number listed. It didn't ask us for a mobile number, just a bog standard phone number.

 

The account is also not a member of the students GAL, so only the staff can see it and they know the school number anyway!

[Michael]

One easy alternative of course is to set the number to a school mobile phone, or the school's own number itself.

 

I agree, the odds of all of you forgetting your password is extremely unlikely.

[sonofsanta]

I don't think the school has a mobile phone. If it does, I haven't a clue on the number.

 

Given that no-one has rung alarm bells about apocalyptic scenarios where this would be an issue, I've just set the relevant number to the school's landline and unhidden us all. It's not complained about "not a mobile" so we'll leave it at that.

 

This is what I get for answering questions honestly! Cheers all.