Check for outdated contacts

Many users have saved colleagues in their own contacts, and those contacts are never updated. When someone leaves and their mobile number is handed to a new colleague, the phone can show the former employee’s name when the new one calls. The check finds cases like this so the user can fix them. The check is free.

What the check finds

• Reassigned number: a number on the user’s contact now belongs to another colleague.
• Former employee: the contact’s work address no longer exists in the organisation.
• Duplicate: the contact has the same email, or the same number and first name, as a colleague ModernSync already keeps up to date.

A number that several people share, such as the switchboard, is never used to find duplicates.

What the check reads and stores

The check reads name, email and phone numbers on the contacts users saved themselves in the mailboxes your rules give contacts to. It changes and deletes nothing. For a finding, ModernSync only stores the name of the contact and the name of the colleague. Numbers and addresses are not stored, and contacts without findings are not mentioned anywhere.

The check uses the permissions you have already approved. No new ones are needed.

How often the check runs

The check goes through each mailbox at least once a week and whenever the mailbox or the rule has changed. Findings that have been fixed therefore disappear at the next pass. Click Update contacts now to check all mailboxes straight away.

1. Switch the check on

Only your own administrator can switch the check on. Go to Settings and find Check for outdated contacts. Click Turn on …, read what the check does, tick the confirmation and click Turn on the check. Findings appear after the next run, including a test run.

2. See the findings

If there are findings, they appear on the Overview marked For your information. Under Mailboxes they are grouped per user with what the user needs to do. Click Download as CSV to get them in a spreadsheet.

3. Ask users to fix them

The contacts are the users’ own, so users fix them themselves. Click Copy message to next to a user and send the message, for example in Teams or by email. It tells the user which contacts to delete or correct. At the next pass of the mailbox, findings that have been fixed disappear. To see it straight away, click Update contacts now.

Switch the check off

Click Turn off under Check for outdated contacts. ModernSync stops reading users’ own contacts, and the stored findings are deleted straight away. The same happens when you offboard.