Syncs to Exchange 2007 (or newer) set invalid value for mailnickname (alias)

In previous versions of our software, connections syncing to an Active Directory (AD) Destination used a default mailNickname mapping, as below:

mailnickname#64=~mail~

This mapping uses the Source email address value to set the mailNickname attribute of each contact created on the destination. As of Exchange 2007, the ampersand @ character is no longer allowed in the mailNickname attribute. Previously synced contacts may contain this ‘invalid’ character, since all synced contacts contain an email address in the mail value.

All versions of UnitySync have a modified mailNickname mapping that uses ~smtpname~.~smtphost~ instead of ~mail~. The mapping ~smtpname~.~smtphost~ is essentially the same value as mail, except uses a period instead of an ampersand.

If you are using custom object maps that were built in pre-Exchange 2007 and are having issues with mailNickname now, this may be the culprit.

This problem is easily remedied with a custom mapping to assign a new mailNickname mapping.

Solution

Edit your existing custom map file and modify the mailNickname mapping to read as follows:

mailnickname#64= ~smtpname~.~smtphost~

On your next sync run, the change will trigger a modification to all synced objects, changing the mailNickname to the new value.