Admin-defined fields in Groupwise 8

Novell has made some changes in the way Groupwise 8 (HP1) handles admin-defined fields. Especially in a mixed environment with Groupwise 8 and 7 clients this can be confusing. I have also noticed inconsistencies in the Groupwise 8 client.  (Fields not being available/visible either in the Adress book listing or the contact details) Below you will find the  solution I have used to resolve this problem.

Novell announces the changes regarding the admin-defined fields here: http://www.novell.com/documentation/gw8/gw8_readmeen/data/gw8_readmeen.html#bbk7qjj

In my case I needed to have the ‘Mobile’ and ‘otherPhoneNumber’ phone numbers available in the “Groupwise Address Book” of the Groupwise 7 and 8 clients. I wanted the fields to show in the listing mode (as a column) of the address book as well as the ‘contact details’ view.

I have achieved this in the following way:

In console one add the following fields to the admin-defined fields lists through: Tools->Groupwise system operations->Admin Defined Fields (The naming of the fields below is crucial)

• otherPhonenumber
• mobile (you might need to add this one manually to the schema and then add it as an attribute to the user object)

In the ‘Admin-Defined fields’ dialog, keep entry 1 empty since there are known issues with this field (at least in Groupwise 7).

Next, go to the domain properties to the “Adress book” tab.

Add the folowing fields to the list on the left side:

• Other Phone
• Mobile Phone
• otherPhonenumber (Admin-defined – You may change the label, in my case “Internal number”)
• mobile (Admin-defined – Do not change the label)

Now run “Maintenance->Rebuild index for listing” for domain and POA.
Synchronize all user objects.

Wait for the automatic address book rebuild to start at night. The next day you’ll see the field contents at all the right locations in the Groupwise 7 client as well as the Groupwise 8 client.

Note: The ‘mobile’ field will show up redundandly in the Groupwise 8 Address book under the contact details, I do not know wether this can be solved without breaking this field in the Groupwise 7 client.