Do You Need to Create a Custom Attribute in Active Directory?

Active Directory does not provide any attributes to store instant messengers, birth date, anniversary, additional addresses, profession, hobbies, gender etc. To add this attributes typically you will need to customize the Active Directory schema which is a complicated operation that requires significant affords.

Instead, you can avoid extending the schema and seamlessly store all data in existing attributes using IT Hit Active Directory Address Book CardDAV Server. In fact you can store in your Active Directory any custom attributes that your CardDAV client (iOS, OS X, e-mail application) supports without any additional affords.

Attributes Backup

As soon as all data is stored in AD all AD backup operations function as usual, IT Hit AD Address Book CardDAV Server does not require setting up any additional SQL or file system backup steps.

How AD Attributes are Mapped to vCard Properties

In a table below you can find how standard Active Directory attributes match to standard vCard properties. It also displays some vCard properties that does not have a corresponding Active Directory attribute. Note that your CardDAV client may provide additional custom properties that will be automatically parsed and stored in AD.