Turn on address book policy routing in Exchange Online

Address book policies (ABPs) allow you to segment users into specific groups to give them customized global address lists (GALs) in Outlook and Outlook on the web (formerly known as Outlook Web App). For more information about ABPs, see Address book policies in Exchange Online.

ABP routing creates the virtual organizations within a single Exchange Online organization. The global address list (GAL) you reside in determines your virtual organization. When ABP routing is turned on, users assigned to different GALs appear as external recipients and can't view each other's contact cards.

In Exchange Online, you can only turn on ABP routing in Exchange Online PowerShell.

Looking for the Exchange Server version of this article? See Use the Exchange Management Shell to install and configure the Address Book Policy Routing Agent.

What do you need to know before you begin?

• You need to be a member of the Organization Management role group in Exchange Online before you can perform the procedure in this article.

• To connect to Exchange Online PowerShell, see Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell.

Tip

Having problems? Ask for help in the Exchange Online forum at Exchange Online.

Use Exchange Online PowerShell to turn on ABP routing

To enable ABP routing in the Exchange Online organization, run the following command:

Set-TransportConfig -AddressBookPolicyRoutingEnabled $true

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Set-TransportConfig.

How do you know this procedure worked?

To verify you successfully turned on ABP routing, use any of the following steps:

• In Exchange Online PowerShell, run the following command to verify that ABP routing is enabled for the organization:

  Get-TransportConfig | Format-List AddressBookPolicyRoutingEnabled
  

• Get a user in one ABP to send a message to a user in a different ABP. Verify the sender's email address doesn't resolve to their display name.