New User Mailbox not showing up in GAL - Created wrong?

Question

I have a strange issue that is causing me angst and making me argue with my network manager.  Here's the lowdown.  Please shed some light on it if you can.
Every place I have worked prior to my current company I would do the following steps to create a new user (new employee).  In AD I would
copy an existing user with the same/similar permissions, distro list membership, etc...  Then go into
EMC and create a new mailbox for an existing user
and link it to the new AD object I had just created.  This always worked for me.  Here it doesn't.  When I do it that way, the new user mailbox does not get added to the GAL.  If you go to
All Users they show up.  I have read several articles about using cached mode and if I turn it off the user will show up.  Unfortunately most of our employees are in the field for long periods of time so we need to run in cached mode.
The way the network manager wants them created (and this way works) is to create a new user mailbox for a
new user in EMC which also creates the AD object.  Then I have to go back to AD and manually add the user to permissions groups, distro lists, add profile settings, etc...  Very tedious and manual process.  
Can someone help me understand why doing it my way, which I have done for years on other networks, is not working here?  Since we are using cached mode do I have to create the user object and mailbox the way he does it?

Answer 1

I believe the way you are doing it and the way he is doing it is doing exactly the same thing as far as when it shows up in the GAL.  The problem sounds like exactly what you said in that you are using cached mode which uses an Offline Address Book
(OAB).  If you look in EMC under Organization Configuration/Mailbox/Offline Address Book, you will see the update schedule.  What happens is when you create the account it shows up in the address book right away however it only shows up in the OAB
when that updater runs.  Even after that is done, the outlook client needs to go out and download the OAB file, which happens 24 hours from the time it last downloaded the OAB.  I'm not sure if there is a fix for your problem as it appears to be
by design.  Perhaps your old company may have been running in online mode?  You may want to look at
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/841273/en-us for more details.
Q1: What is cached mode?
A1: Cached mode is the new default configuration for Outlook. It provides an experience that is similar to the offline configuration in earlier versions of Outlook. When you are running in cached mode, your Exchange mailbox is synchronized to a local
file (an .ost file), and the offline address list from your Exchange computer is synchronized to a collection of files (.oab files) on your client computer. Outlook directly accesses the .ost file and the .oab files on your hard disk instead of communicating
directly with your server or servers. Therefore, network communication between Outlook and Exchange is significantly reduced.
Q2: Why does cached mode generate an offline address book?
A2: The offline address book  contains a set of all the properties of a user (such as e-mail addresses and names) that Outlook requires. With an offline address book, Outlook does not have to connect to the global catalog to resolve names, nor
does it have to open a person’s details record. Instead, Outlook easily obtains this information from the local offline address book.
Q5: How frequently is the offline address book updated on the Outlook client?
A5: If left constantly running, Outlook in cached mode automatically updates the offline address book on the client every 24 hours. The 24-hour time period is measured from the time that the offline address book was last downloaded successfully. For
example, if you complete an offline address book download at 09:00 today, Outlook will start the offline address book download the next day at approximately 09:00. Therefore, different people will receive updates at different, random times.
Note The default setting on the Exchange computer is to generate an offline address book differential file every morning at 04:00. For a change that is made in Active Directory to reach the client computer, the following events must occur:
The change must be picked up by the Exchange computer that generates the offline address book files. This can take several hours. At worst, it can take 24 hours. This variable will be referred to as "x."
The Outlook clients must download the offline address book updates every 24 hours. This update can take several hours. At  worst, it can take 24 hours. This variable will be referred to as "y."
The update reaches the client machines x+y hours later. It would be rare for a client to ever experience a 48-hour delay or more unless there were some Active Directory or public folder replication issues.