Summary

Recipients are Active Directory objects that are used to reference resources that can receive messages. The four main types of recipients are as follows :

• Users

• Groups Contacts

• Public folders

A user is an Active Directory object that usually represents a person with an Exchange mailbox. A mailbox-enabled user has an associated mailbox in a Private Information Store on an Exchange server. Each user mailbox is a private storage area that allows an individual user to send, receive, and store messages. A mail-enabled user is one who has an e-mail address and can receive, but not send, messages.

A group is a container into which you can place other recipients. Recipients in a group automatically inherit that group ‚ s permissions and rights. Exchange uses mail-enabled groups to form distribution lists. Messages sent to a group are redirected and sent to each member of the group . These groups allow users to send messages to multiple recipients without having to address each recipient individually.

Query-based distribution groups are a new type of distribution group in Exchange Server 2003 that allows Exchange administrators to create distribution groups that maintain their group membership dynamically. Once the LDAP query has successfully been created for the query-based distribution group, the applicable objects (those that meet the filter query criteria) will automatically be members of the query-based distribution group. Every time an e-mail message is sent to a query-based distribution group, the LDAP query is performed to determine the current group membership to which the message should be expanded.

A contact is a pointer to an e-mail address for a non-Exchange recipient. Contacts are most often used for connecting your organization to foreign messaging systems, such as Microsoft Mail, Lotus Notes, or the Internet. As an administrator, you would create contacts so that frequently used e-mail addresses are available in the Global Address List as real names .

A public folder contains information that is shared among a group of people. Public folders can contain e-mail messages, forms, word-processing documents, spreadsheet files, and files of many other formats.

With the exception of public folders, all recipient objects are created and managed using the Active Directory Users and Computers utility. When you create a new user, you are automatically given the chance to create a mailbox for that user. You can also create mailboxes for existing users. Contacts and groups are usually made mail-enabled when they are created.

Recipient objects are generally configured with property pages, which are groups of attributes that pertain to the object. Other Exchange- related tasks can be accessed through the Exchange Tasks command in the Action menu of Active Directory Users and Computers.

Public folders are created and managed using either an Exchange client or the System Manager snap-in for Exchange.