In most organizations, contact info is spread across different platforms, e.g., Outlook, Gmail, Global Address Lists (GALs), CRMs, etc. This siloed data can often make it difficult to find the right contact information when you need it. Each platform your company uses probably has its style of storing contact data (e.g., names, email, phone numbers, etc). When you try to manually consolidate contacts from different sources, you could end up with mismatched or missing information.
If your company’s contact repository doesn’t update automatically when contact information changes, chances are your contacts on Teams will become outdated as well. For instance, a colleague could change their phone number, or a new hire might not be added to your list.
The problem with outdated data? It easily leads to communication breakdowns and wasted time due to back-and-forth emails trying to get the right contact info.
And, as you can imagine, manually updating contacts daily or weekly across multiple platforms is a time-consuming and error-prone process. It’s too easy to forget to update a contact in one place, create duplicates, or accidentally overwrite important information.
Just not practical in the long-term.
Microsoft’s Outlook to Teams Unified Contacts: A Step in the Right Direction?
Microsoft recently announced a brand-new unified contacts experience in Teams and Outlook, which is now generally available. This feature allows Microsoft Entra ID users to access and manage the same set of contacts across both platforms. The new unified contacts experience was rolled out to Outlook users as of January 6th, 2025, and will be gradually rolled out to Teams users by April 30th, 2025. This means that contacts stored in your Outlook address book will be available in Teams for chats, calls, and other collaboration.
Microsoft says that user annotations on contacts, such as category labels, will also reflect across Teams and Outlook. All existing Teams and Outlook contacts will be available in the unified contacts experience, with obvious duplicates merged into a single contact.
In case of any conflicts while merging Teams and Outlook contacts, a new copy of the contact will be created with Teams data and clearly tagged with the contact category “Teams conflicts” for users to review.
But while this is a great step toward unifying contacts across the Microsoft ecosystem, this sync feature has significant limitations:
- No GAL Integration: The sync only pulls contacts from your personal Outlook address book. Your organization’s Global Address List (GAL)—the central directory of employees, teams, and shared contacts—won’t sync unless manually added to Outlook.
- Manual Updates Required: Changes made in Teams or Outlook won’t automatically sync to the other platform.
- Limited Sources: Contacts from critical sources like CRMs, Gmail, or public folders are excluded.
- No Filtering: All Outlook contacts sync indiscriminately—no way to exclude folders or filter contacts.
- Delays: Updates can take up to 24 hours to reflect in Teams.
For organizations relying on GAL or multi-platform contacts, these gaps mean Teams will still lack critical, up-to-date information.
CiraSync: The Missing Piece for Seamless Teams Contact Sync
CiraSync is an automated contact sync solution that integrates with Microsoft 365, including Teams. It fixes Microsoft’s gaps by ensuring your GAL and other key sources automatically populate Outlook (and thus Teams):
Why CiraSync is Essential:
✅ Automatic GAL Sync: CiraSync pushes your organization’s Global Address List (GAL) to every user’s Outlook Contacts folder, ensuring Teams always has the full employee directory—no manual additions.
✅ Real-Time Updates: Changes in GAL, CRMs, or public folders sync to Outlook/Teams within minutes, not hours.
✅ Central Control: Admins decide which GAL groups, CRM lists, or folders sync to users. Distribute contacts by department, location, or role.
✅ Conflict-Free Merging: Intelligent mapping avoids duplicates and overwrites, even when merging data from Outlook, GAL, and CRMs.
✅ Security: Built on Microsoft Azure with GDPR, HIPAA, and SOC 2 compliance.
With CiraSync, your Teams contacts are always complete:
- New hires in GAL? They’ll appear in Teams automatically.
- A sales rep updates a CRM contact? The change reflects in Teams instantly.
- No more outdated or missing info—just seamless collaboration.
The Bottom Line
Microsoft’s Outlook-to-Teams sync is a step forward, but without GAL automation and multi-source sync, Teams contacts will remain incomplete. CiraSync bridges the gap, ensuring your entire organization—not just Outlook users—has accurate, real-time contacts in Teams.
Ready to transform Teams into a true collaboration hub?
Explore CiraSync’s case studies to see how we automate contact sync for enterprises.
