Lesson 1: Creating Public Folders


Public folders provide a way to store information that can be shared by users in an Exchange Server 2003 organization. When you use public folders in combination with customized Outlook forms, they become the repository for collaboration applications such as bulletin boards, discussion groups, customer tracking systems, and so on. Users can access public folders in different ways. One way is by using Outlook. Public folders can also be accessed with Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) clients, which are popular methods of allowing public folder access to users outside the organization, such as customers.

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After this lesson, you will be able to

  • Understand the uses of public folders

  • Create public folders

  • Create a new public folder tree

Estimated lesson time: 45 minutes

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Using Public Folders

Public folders are contained in public folder stores. The public folder listing that is viewed by the client software, such as Outlook, is arranged in a tree structure that is called a public folder tree (also known as a hierarchy). Any public folder that contains subfolders is referred to as a parent folder, and a parent folder can contain child folders that exist as subfolders. Public folders that are created at the root of a public folder tree are referred to as top-level folders.

Public folders provide a number of benefits, including the following:

  • Allowing messages to be sent to public folders using e-mail addresses that are stored in Active Directory directory service instead of posting messages to the folders.

  • Allowing users both internal to the Exchange Server 2003 organization and external to the organization to collaborate.

  • Making newsgroups available to users.

  • Allowing Web browsers to gain access to public folders by specifying a Uniform Resource Locater (URL) to that folder.

  • Performing full-text index searches on public folder contents.

  • Allowing users to gain access to any public folder in the organization. By default, Exchange Server 2003 enables public folder referrals between routing groups.

There are other uses for public folders, as well. Public folders are very flexible in that they are able to hold almost any kind of data you might want to store and make that data available to other users. Public folders are often used to provide a customer feedback e-mail address. If you used a standard user mailbox in this situation, you would have messages being sent to a single individual. If you used a distribution list for the feedback e-mail address, everyone in the list would receive every e-mail sent to the address, which might not be desirable, particularly if an executive manager wanted to be able to monitor the feedback e-mail periodically but without having to receive all of the messages in his or her own mailbox. By using a public folder arrangement, feedback e-mails from customers could be posted to the public folder and permissions granted to the folder for everyone who needed access. This would create a central repository for the e-mail messages.

Another common scenario for using public folders is to create group or departmental shared calendars. These calendars can be used for tracking sales appointments for a sales staff, maintaining an employee vacation schedule, listing employee birthdays or anniversary dates, and so on.

Creating Public Folders

There are two ways to create public folders. The most common way is by using Outlook because users can easily create their own public folders inside of top-level folders to which they have been granted permission. This eases the administrative burden since the administrator does not have to create every public folder that is required. With the Exchange Server 2003 version of Outlook Web Access (OWA), you can use and create public folders. This is a significant upgrade from the Exchange Server 5.5 version of OWA, which had no support for public folders. The other method used to create public folders is to use Exchange System Manager. This method accomplishes the same thing as creating public folders in Outlook, but this method is used exclusively by Exchange administrators.

Creating Public Folders in Outlook

By default, all users in an Exchange organization can create public folders under the All Public Folders top-level folder. This default behavior can be modified; this topic is discussed in Lesson 3 of this chapter. To create a public folder in Outlook 2003, perform the following steps:

  1. Expand the Public Folders container in the Folder List, and then expand the All Public Folders container to see the list of current public folders.

  2. Right-click All Public Folders, and then click New Folder. This will open the Create New Folder dialog box, shown in Figure 8-1.


    Figure 8-1: Creating a new public folder

  3. Type a name for the folder. The name should be descriptive and identify the purpose of the folder.

  4. The default type of items for a new public folder is Mail And Post Items. However, you can click the drop-down list to select one of the following:

    • Calendar Items

    • Contact Items

    • Journal Items

    • Note Items

    • Task Items

    Choose the type of items you want the folder to contain. Each public folder can contain only one of the above item types.

  5. The last configuration option is Select Where To Place The Folder. It will default to the folder you were in when you chose to create a new folder, in this case All Public Folders. You can easily navigate to a different folder, if desired, and folders can be nested inside one another. Once you select a location, click OK to create the public folder.

Creating Public Folders in OWA

Creating a public folder using OWA is very similar to creating a public folder using Outlook and can be done as follows:

  1. Log on to OWA, then click the Public Folders link from the navigation menu.

  2. A new browser window will open with Public Folders as the root container. This view maps directly to the All Public Folders container you saw in Outlook, and you will see a list of public folders under the Public Folders container.

  3. Right-click Public Folders, and then click New Folder. The Create New Folder–Web Page Dialog dialog box, shown in Figure 8-2, opens.


    Figure 8-2: Creating a public folder in OWA

  4. Enter the information to create a new public folder.

Creating Public Folders in Exchange System Manager

Exchange Server 2003 administrators can create public folders using Exchange System Manager. This is especially useful for creating a hierarchy of top-level folders for users and then assigning permissions so users can only create subfolders in specific top-level folders. This allows the administrator to control the amount of top-level folders and to keep the public folder hierarchy from getting too cluttered and inefficient to use.

  1. Open Exchange System Manager and navigate to an administrative group, and then expand the Folders container to view the public folder trees, as shown in Figure 8-3.

    click to expand
    Figure 8-3: The Folders container

  2. Expand the Public Folders container, which is the equivalent of the All Public Folders container that displays in Outlook. This will show you the current folders in your public folder tree.

  3. Right-click the Public Folders container, point to New, and then click Public Folder. You will see a dialog box similar to the one shown in Figure 8-4.

    click to expand
    Figure 8-4: Creating a public folder in Exchange System Manager

  4. Fill in the information to identify the folder. Note that there is no option to configure the type of items the public folder will contain. The folder will contain Mail And Post Items, which cannot be changed. These folders can also be used to contain other folders, which can hold any type of items. If you need to create public folders that will contain items other than Mail And Post Items, you will need to use Outlook or OWA to create them.

Creating a Public Folder Tree

When you view public folders through the All Public Folders container, you are viewing a public folder tree, which is also known as a hierarchy. There are two types of public folder trees in Exchange Server 2003: the Default public folder tree and General Purpose public folder trees. There can be only a single Default public folder tree in an Exchange Server 2003 organization; however, you can create as many General Purpose trees as your organization requires.

The Default Public Folder Tree

The Default public folder tree is automatically created by the Setup program when you install the first Exchange Server 2003 server and create your organization. The Default public folder tree is listed in Exchange System Manager as Public Folders and is displayed in Outlook as All Public Folders. The tree contains the list of all public folders within the tree.

The Default public folder tree is replicated to each Exchange server that contains a public folder store that is associated with that tree. As a result, users can easily browse the public folder hierarchy. By default, this public folder tree exists on every public folder server in an Exchange Server 2003 organization.

General Purpose Public Folder Trees

General Purpose public folder trees are additional public folder trees that you can create. Similar to the Default public folder tree, a General Purpose public folder tree is replicated to each server running Exchange 2000 Server (or a later version) that contains a public folder store associated with that tree. As a result, you can create additional public folder trees that are replicated to selected public folder servers in the Exchange organization.

General Purpose public folder trees do not support Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) clients, so the General Purpose public folder tree that you create will not be visible or accessible to Outlook users. Instead, General Purpose trees are accessible only by NNTP and HTTP clients. In addition, to allow users to access a General Purpose public folder tree from a Web browser, you will need to implement an HTTP virtual server in your Exchange Server 2003 organization.

See Also

Virtual servers, including HTTP, are discussed in Chapter 9, "Virtual Servers." What you need to know in order to complete the exercises in this chapter will be provided.

A common use for General Purpose public folder trees is to store custom applications. You can use separate General Purpose public folder trees to store custom collaboration applications according to the functional, business, or geographic requirements of your users. For example, you can use one tree to store personnel department applications and use another tree to store accounting applications or research and development applications.

Another common use of General Purpose public folder trees is to make public folder data available to users outside of the organization, such as business partners and customers. By using a separate public folder tree, you can keep this type of data separate from the folder content in the Default tree, as well as apply different security settings. Multiple public folder trees provide similar benefits to using multiple storage groups in that they offer greater backup and restore flexibility in addition to the security benefits.

How to Create General Purpose Public Folder Trees

You can create as many General Purpose public folder trees as necessary, though you must associate a public folder tree with a public folder store in order to use it. Therefore, you are generally limited in adding public folder trees to the number of public stores that the organization has. A public folder tree can have only one public store on a given server associated with it. You must first create the public folder tree using Exchange System Manager and then create a public store and associate it with the tree.

Practice: Creating Public Folders

In this practice, you will create a new public folder tree and then create a new public store and associate it with the tree you create. Then, you will create a public folder in the new public folder tree. You will then create a new HTTP virtual server for the public folder tree and verify that you can access the public folder tree through a Web browser.

Exercise 1: Create a Public Folder Tree and Public Store

  1. Open Exchange System Manager and navigate to your administrative group. Right-click the Folders container in the administrative group, point to New, and then click Public Folder Tree.

  2. Name the tree CustomerForum and click OK.

  3. Navigate to your server in Exchange System Manager and expand the container node. Right-click a storage group on the server, point to New, and then click Public Store.

  4. Name the public store Forums, and then click Browse to associate the store with a public folder tree.

  5. Click the new public folder tree you just created from the list of Available Public Folder Trees, and then click OK.

  6. Click OK to finish creating the public store, and then click Yes to mount the database.

Exercise 2: Create Public Folders

  1. In Exchange System Manager, navigate to the CustomerForum public folder tree that you created.

  2. Right-click CustomerForum, point to New, and then click Public Folder.

  3. Name the folder Setup Support, and then click OK.

  4. Repeat the process to create public folders for Announcements and Features Wishlist.

  5. Verify the existence of the new public folders in the list under the CustomerForum public folder tree.

Exercise 3: Create a Virtual Directory

  1. In Exchange System Manager, navigate to the administrative group and to your server, and then expand the Protocols container.

  2. Expand the HTTP container to view Exchange Virtual Server, and then expand it to view the containers below.

  3. Right-click Exchange Virtual Server, point to New, and then click Virtual Directory. This opens a Properties dialog box, as shown in Figure 8-5.

    click to expand
    Figure 8-5: Configuring a virtual directory

  4. Name the virtual directory Forums and then click Modify to change the Exchange path from the default Public Folders.

  5. In the Choose A Public Folder dialog box, click CustomerForum, and then click OK.

  6. Click OK again to finish creating the virtual directory.

Exercise 4: Access the Public Folder Tree through HTTP

  1. Wait about two minutes for the configuration to complete in the Exchange organization, and then open Microsoft Internet Explorer.

  2. Enter the URL to your public folder tree, which is in the format of http://servername/virtualdirectory. If your server is Server01 in this exercise, you would type http://Server01/Forums. Then you will see a browser window like that in Figure 8-6.

    click to expand
    Figure 8-6: Browsing the public folder tree

  3. Note the public folder structure you created. Close Internet Explorer.

Lesson Review

The following questions are intended to reinforce key information presented in this lesson. If you are unable to answer a question, review the lesson materials and then try the question again. You can find answers to the questions in the "Questions and Answers" section at the end of this chapter.

  1. You are the Exchange Server administrator for Litware, Inc. You create a new public folder tree to support customer forums, and you explain to users that they will not be able to use Outlook to access these folders but will have to use Internet Explorer instead. A couple of days later, you receive a call from a user who says that they are using Internet Explorer, but they see only the same folders they see in Outlook. They don't see the customer forums. What are they doing wrong?

  2. You are the network administrator for Fabrikam, Inc., which has approximately 1500 employees worldwide. You have delegated the task of creating public folders to your junior administrator and have restricted the ability for users to create public folders. The sales director puts in a work order to have a number of public folders created. Most of the folders will contain calendar and task items. Your junior administrator tells you that he is having trouble completing the task and that when he creates a public folder, there is no option for defining the item type. What do you tell him?

  3. You create a new public folder tree for the purpose of setting up customer support public folders but find that after creating the tree, you are unable to create public folders in the tree. When you right-click the public folder tree and point to New, the option for Public Folder is unavailable. Why?

Lesson Summary

  • There are two types of public folder trees: the Default public folder tree and General Purpose public folder trees.

  • There is only a single Default public folder tree in an Exchange organization. You can configure as many General Purpose public folder trees as necessary.

  • A public folder tree must be associated with a public store for it to be usable.

  • Public folders in the Default public folder tree can be created using Exchange System Manager, Outlook, or OWA.




MCSA/MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-284(c) Implementing and Managing Microsoft Exchange Server 2003)
MCSA/MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-284): Implementing and Managing MicrosoftВ® Exchange Server 2003 (Pro-Certification)
ISBN: 0735618992
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 221

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