I've ended up in the infuriating situation where some* of the users in my G Suite (formerly Google Apps Free edition) cannot access their contacts through the web browser. If they go to Gmail, then click Contacts from the drop down it displays this error page:
We are sorry, but you do not have access to Contacts. Please log in to
admin.google.com to enable Contacts
Google provide a help link that takes me to Control who can access Google services help page. If I click the Contacts link it takes me to a page called Manage the Directory service which provides NO clues at all about how to enable Contacts.
Many of the help docs mention navigating to App > G Suite > Contacts. Unfortunately the Contacts app appears nowhere in the list of G Suite apps (it says I have eight apps: Calendar, Drive, Gmail, Hangouts, Google+, Keep, Sites, Directory). Contacts shows up nowhere in either "G Suite" or "Additional Google services" app settings.
How can I get Contacts working again?
* I just noticed that my admin account can access contacts via the browser. Just none of my other users. Cannot see anything configured differently for that account.
Best Answer
I am also experiencing this issue and also upgraded from a free Google Aps account. I suspect the issue is related to that. When I searched on Google it appears that at one point in time admins had to enable the contacts features for users. However that is no longer the case, in facts it's not even possile to disable it. I'm currently waiting in the support chat queue to see if we can reolve.
FYI I have found that it is alsways possible to access contacts, but it takes work. Sometimes they have to be access via a direct URL rather than from the Gmail page. Or sometimes I have to go to contacts using my personal account, and then switch to the G Suite account.
So clearly there is some hiuccup somewhere on the G Suite end. Hopefully support will be able to solve the issue, I suspect it cannot be solved on my admin end.