Sharing with Exchange Server Public and Mailbox Folders
The most effective solution for sharing Outlook
contacts and calendars in a live fashion is Microsoft
Exchange Server. For organizations with fewer than 50
workstations, Microsoft
Small Business Server 2000 includes Windows 2000 Server, Exchange
2000, and Microsoft Fax Server.
For a shared
address book that people can update without the
intervention of an administrator, you can use the File | New
| Folder command in Outlook to create a
public folder to hold Contact items and grant permissions
as needed. Users can add this folder to their Outlook
Address Book by checking a box on the properties for the
folder. Users who work out of the office will want to add it to their
Favorites folder and set it for offline use.
To
share your own calendar with someone else, grant access
with Tools | Options | Delegates or with
the File | Properties dialog for the
Calendar folder. If you don't see the Delegates
tab and you do have Exchange Server in the current
profile, use Tools | Options | General | Add-in
Manager to add the Dlgsetp.ecf add-on.
Outlook
2002 is the first version of Outlook with a built-in function for viewing a combined
calendar for a group of people (in the Calendar folder, Actions |
View Group Schedules). Outlook 2003 is the first version that
allows you to view multiple calendar folders -- including those for
other people or in Public Folders -- in a side-by-side view. See Maintaining
a Group Calendar in Outlook for ideas on how to
accomplish either of these tasks with third-party tools and other
techniques.
If you want someone to be able to send as another user, without
getting "On Behalf Of" as part of the sender name, or as
a public folder you must grant
the Send As permission to the actual sender's Windows account
using the Exchange Administrator program or Exchange System
Manager. The
sender then puts the other person's name in the From field on the
outgoing message. See:
If you also want the sent messages to be filed in the Sent Items
folder of the other person, you can use the
UniSent COM
add-in for Outlook 2000 and 2002.
To allow access to a shared folder that isn't one of the folders
listed on the File | Open | Other User's Folder dialog, the
mailbox owner needs to grant Reviewer permission to the root of
the mailbox, as well as appropriate permission on the folder. The
user who needs access then goes into Tools | Services (or
Tools | E-mail Accounts in Outlook 2002) , brings up the
properties for the Exchange Server service, and on the Advanced
tab, adds the mailbox. After that, the user will see in the folder
list all those folders in the secondary mailbox to which he/she
has access and can add any
of those folders to the Outlook Bar.
If
you've granted delegate access to someone in Outlook, when they
access the mailbox with Outlook Web Access in Exchange 2000,
they'll be able to gain read-only access to the allowed folders by
browsing to the URL (http://servername/exchange/username/calendar
for example). However, they can't make any changes unless they
have Owner permission on the mailbox.
All Exchange public folders can have e-mail addresses. If you
don't see an Add to Personal Address Book button on the folder's
properties dialog and it's hidden in the GAL, ask your Exchange
administrator.
For
Exchange Server 2000, use the Exchange System Manager to see or assign an address.
Automatic journaling can be turned on only for those
Contacts in your mailbox folders, not for public
folder Contacts.
Any journal item that you create and save with Save
and Close is placed in your mailbox Journal
folder. To save a journal item to a public folder
Journal, you should use the File | Move
command, rather than Save and Close,
to place the journal item in the public folder. See Creating
a Public Journal for Microsoft Outlook for more
ideas in this issue.
Reminders do not fire for appointments, tasks, or
flagged items in public folders. See
Appointment
Reminder Paging Script for a sample Exchange Server
script for sending appointment
reminders as e-mail messages.
Outlook/Exchange provide no locking mechanism for items and
documents in public folders. In other words, there's no way for
one user to open an item/document for writing, then have others
open it with read-only access.
Problems
Mailing
a message to a public folder in Exchange 2000 (e.g. subscribing a
public folder to a mailing list) causes the item to be
stored as IPM.Post, not IPM.Note, which means you can't reply to it. Earlier versions did not exhibit
this behavior. Microsoft released a patch for Exchange 2000 and
Exchange 2003. The patch is included in Exchange 2003 SP1 and should
be used instead of other methods. See KB
817809
for links to the file and instructions on how to enable it.
Some public folders can slow down considerably
because of views and read/unread tracking. See:
If you're writing code in Outlook forms or add-ins, use Find and
FindNext instead of Restrict if at all possible, since Exchange
caches the Restrict queries.
Client-based notification tool for Outlook folders, including Exchange Server public folders. Now supports Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007. Freeware.
Collates appointments from individuals into a group calendar either with or without Exchange Server. With Exchange, you can use a public folder as the group calendar and it will update automatically. Without Exchange, users will need to click a button to copy their appointments to the group calendar. New version can use SQL server database and includes a new built in grid view which is printable. Version 1.26
Tool from the Exchange 2000 Resource Kit to change permissions and replication settings for a folder and its subfolders. Does not work with any version of Exchange after Exchange 2000 SP1. Also see:
Free tool from Microsoft for managing permissions on public and mailbox folders, including all the way down to the item level. Requires .NET Framework. For use with Exchange 2000 Server, Exchage Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2007.
View folder permissions and other properties. Export folder properties and permissions to a text file or relational database for analysis. Send customized messages to folder owners. Manage orphaned public folder client permissions.
Free Exchange store synchronous event sink to notify users when a new item is placed in an Exchange public folder. You'll need the Exchange Explorer utility from the Exchange SDK to register the sink.
COM add-in for Outlook 2000 or 2002 that automatically fills in the correct From address when the user is responding to a message in another user's Exchange mailbox. (Use it with the UniSent add-in from the same site. UniSent keeps the outgoing messages in the Sent Items folder of the other users mailbox.)
Outlook 2000 COM add-in for Exchange Server users who need to send mail from a second mailbox. The add-in ensures that messages sent with the second mailbox's From address or deleted from the second mailbox stay in the Sent Items or Deleted Items folder of the second mailbox.