The following articles were included in our Exchange Messaging Outlook (EMO) newsletter published on January 12, 2017.
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Today's Highlights:
- Reminders on Shared Calendars?
- Messages are Marked as Read
- Fixed: Public Folders Don't Sync in Outlook 2016
- Contest: Office 365 Home Subscriptions
Reminders on Shared Calendars?
Questions about reminders on shared folders comes up every few months.
We have a shared calendar that our workgroup can add appointments to. We want the reminders to show up for all the people it's shared with, but they are only popping up on the computer of person that created the item. Can we have the reminders pop up on all the computers that are sharing?
No. Reminders only fire for calendars in the accounts (listed in Account Settings) in your profile. Reminders in shared mailbox won't fire, in part because it has the potential to create "reminder spam".
You have two options: Users copy the appointments that they want reminders for, to their own calendar. They can either open the appointment and click the Copy to Calendar button or drag and drag a copy to their calendar.
The other option is to give the users full access permission to the mailbox and have them add it to their profile as a separate account. If they add the shared mailbox as an account, remove it as additional mailbox (if added) and the Exchange administrator will also need to set automapping to false.
Messages are Marked as Read
A few users complained that their email is being marked as read as it is downloaded, before they've read the messages.
There are a few reasons why this happens. Using a rule to forward messages was the cause for some of the users. When you use a rule to forward messages, they will be forwarded as they are downloaded and are marked as read in the process.
If you use the default Reading pane options, messages are marked as read after being selected 5 seconds or when another message is selected. To disable this in Outlook, switch to the View tab, click on the Reading pane button and choose Options. Uncheck 'Mark item as read when selection changes'. You may want to either increase the seconds before marking an item read or uncheck 'Mark items as read when viewed in the Reading pane'. My own preference is to have both options off and mark messages as read manually if I read them in the reading pane and did not reply. (Use Ctrl+Q or click the Unread indicator to mark as read.)
If forwarding rules and the reading pane settings are not the problem, are you downloading mail on multiple computers or devices? If the messages are downloaded using Pop3, the client may mark them read on the server. In this scenario, it's better to use IMAP so all mailboxes are identical and Sent messages sync to all devices.
Fixed: Public Folders Don't Sync in Outlook 2016
Users have complained for months that Public Folder Favorites were not being cached in Outlook 2016. This also affected the ability to search public folders - because the items weren't cached, Outlook wasn't indexing the folder contents. Search only worked if you unchecked the Download shared folders option which switched the folders to online mode, where items were indexed by the server. This also made large public folders slow to use as the contents needs to sync down every time you switched to the folder.
This issue was fixed in the in the January 3, 2017, update for Outlook 2016 (KB3141453) for MSI installations. Users with the Click to Run installations (most people) will see the fix soon, if not already.
Contest: Office 365 Home Subscriptions
Reminder: I have 5 Office 365 Home subscriptions and 2 Office 365 Personal subscriptions to give away. The requirements to enter are easy: send an email to dec2016@slipstick.com to enter. I'll draw names at the end of January 2017.
More information on Office 365 Home subscriptions is at Office 365 Home.
New & Updated Exchange KB Articles
Can't connect to a mailbox after it's re-enabled in Exchange Server
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3132711
Office Web Apps and Office Online Server supportability in Azure
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3199955
Voice mail settings are missing from the Options pane in Outlook on the web in Office 365
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3216404
New & Updated Office 365 KB Articles
January 10, 2017, update for Excel 2013 (KB3141475)
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3141475
January 10, 2017, update for Microsoft Office
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3214449
New & Updated Outlook KB Articles
Display issues in Office client applications
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2768648
January 10, 2017, update for Microsoft Office
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3214449
When you try to save a .jpg file attachment, a message is displayed about the file name extension in Outlook for Mac
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2788325