Using an LDAP address book

Once the LDAP Address Book is fully configured, the contact data in the Address Book is automatically pulled from the LDAP directory.  The LDAP Address Book looks virtually the same as a FootPrints Address Book.  LDAP Address Book data is not stored in a FootPrints Address Book table; it is always taken directly from the LDAP directory.  However, the contact data for a particular customer, when chosen using the Select Contact button on the Create Issue or Edit Issue pages, will be saved along with the history of the Issue. 

The contact data saved in an Issue is a snapshot of the data taken from the LDAP database at the time the Select Contact was performed.  If the customer’s data changes at a later date (e.g., the customer's phone number changes), it is not reflected in the history of the Issue.  It will be reflected the next time that contact data is accessed from the LDAP directory.

Limitations of LDAP Address Book

Using an LDAP directory, once properly configured, is no different than using a FootPrints Address Book, with the following exceptions:

• FootPrints permits only read access to an LDAP directory.  Write access is not available in the current release.
• If a server limit is set on the number of contacts to be returned for an LDAP query and one is attempting to look at any query that would return a number of results greater than the server limit, some of the results are missing and the missing results may be randomly dispersed throughout.  This most commonly appears when browsing through the entire Address Book.  Any more specific search for a contact work correctly even if the contact does not appear when browsing the Address Book.  To correct this problem, the number of results returned for an LDAP query can be raised on the LDAP server (Active Directory, Sun ONE Directory Server, etc.)
• The Address Book Homepage and the Select Contact page do not allow browsing using A-Z links.  In addition, the Address Book Homepage does not list the first fifty contacts in the Address Book; instead, it displays the Address Book search.  Because LDAP does not support browsing of contacts, and many users have large LDAP Address Books with various response times, the browsing options were removed from the interface to prevent time-outs.  To find a contact, fill in one or more fields and click GO.  The non-LDAP FootPrints Address Book is not affected.