Managing Public Folders with System Manager

The Exchange System Manager provides a second way to create public folders and also provides many configuration options that are different than those available from within Outlook.

Creating Public Folders in System Manager

In older versions of Exchange Server, you could create public folders only by using an Exchange client such as Outlook. Fortunately, Exchange Server 2003 allows you to perform this task from within the Exchange System Manager, offering Exchange administrators an easier way to create and manage public folders using only one tool. Exercise 6.7 outlines the steps for creating a public folder using System Manager.

EXERCISE 6.7: Creating a Public Folder in System Manager

Expand the public folder tree in which you want to create a new folder. If you have not created additional trees beyond the All Public Folders default tree, then expand that default tree.
If you want to make a top-level folder, select the tree object itself. Otherwise, navigate through the tree, and select the folder in which you want to create the new subfolder, as seen below.
Right-click in the public folder tree where you want to create the new public folder and select New > Public Folder.
In the Name field, enter a name for the new public folder.
Optionally, type a description for the public folder that will appear in the Global Address List.
Click the OK button to create the new public folder. The folder will immediately be available to users.

Mail-Enabling a Public Folder

Once you have created a new public folder, you will still need to mail-enable the folder and configure mail- related settings if you want the public folder to be able to receive e-mail messages. If you choose not to do this, users will be able to post messages only by using a MAPI client.

All public folders in the default tree and any general-purpose trees are not mail-enabled by default. If any folder in any tree is made mail-enabled, it becomes visible in the GAL by default.

To mail-enable a folder, select the folder in Exchange System Manager and choose All Tasks > Mail Enable from the Action menu. The command should take effect immediately, although you will get no feedback from the Exchange System Manager after executing it. Once you have mail-enabled a folder, that folder ‚ s property sheet shows several extra mail-related property pages, including Exchange General, E-mail Addresses, and Exchange Advanced. These property pages work the same as the similar property pages for other recipients and allow you to perform such functions as setting delivery options and restrictions, changing the display name and alias, and setting custom attributes. Since Chapter 5 provided detailed coverage of performing these actions on other types of recipients, we refer you to that chapter for the specifics.

Hiding Public Folders

Public folders can be hidden from the GAL and the public folder hierarchy. Hiding public folders can be part of your security plan. By default, each public folder is not hidden from the GAL. A public folder can be hidden by selecting the Hide From Exchange Address Lists check box found on its Exchange Advanced property page, seen in Figure 6.5.

Figure 6.5: Configuring a public folder to be hidden

Before you can hide a public folder from the GAL, however, you will need to first mail-enable it from the Exchange System Manager, as discussed previously in the ‚“Mail-Enabling a Public Folder ‚½ section.

Latency Issues with Public Folder Hierarchy and Content

One Exchange service (the Public Folder Replication Agent) manages the replication of public folders, while another service (the System Attendant) manages the listing of public folders in the Global Address List. Because of this segregated management, you may notice a number of latency issues, especially when working with large public folder trees. These issues include the following:

Sometimes public folder trees appear differently when managed from two different servers. This is usually because changes to the public folder hierarchy have not yet been replicated to all servers.
Users may see the public folder hierarchy in their MAPI client but not be able to see the individual public folders in their address book until both services have replicated their information.
Certain properties may appear incorrectly (or not at all) in System Manager because the replication of the hierarchy has taken place faster than the directory information.

Configuring Public Folders in System Manager

No matter how you create a public folder, it becomes accessible to users almost immediately, using the default configurations. As you saw earlier in the chapter, a good bit of public folder configuration is available from within the Outlook client so that users can take on some of the administrative burden of creating and maintaining public folders. However, there is also a good bit of configuration available for public folders that can be accomplished only by using the Exchange System Manager.

Hiding a Public Folder from the Public Folder Hierarchy

By default, all public folders and their contents are visible in the public folder hierarchy to all other recipients. To hide the contents of a particular public folder, you must revoke the Read Items permission for the recipient or recipients at that particular folder. If you wanted to hide not merely the contents of a public folder but also its very listing in the hierarchy, you would revoke the Read Items permission for the parent folder of the folder you want hidden. Since a subfolder is considered part of the contents of its parent folder, revoking this permission at the parent folder would prevent the viewing of that subfolder in the hierarchy.

Many times, an organization will create a top level called Hidden Folders that will contain all the folders they want hidden from the majority of their users. The Default user will be assigned the None role for Hidden Folders, which will prevent them from viewing all subfolders. Even the top-level folder Hidden Folders could be made invisible by revoking the Folder Visible permission from the Default user . To enable the users who do need to access the subfolders under this root, you would create distribution lists and assign the relevant permissions at this root and any subfolders .

Within Exchange System Manager, public folders are managed at two distinct levels. The first is at the level of the public folder store, where you configure settings governing how the public folder store should handle public folders in general. The second is at the level of the public folder itself, where you configure properties that control certain aspects of the folder and often override settings made at the store level.

Configuring Public Folder Store Properties

The public folder properties managed at the level of a public folder store govern the default settings for all public folders in that store. As with most other objects, the settings for the public folder store are managed through property pages. Each public folder store exists on a specific server. The Public Folder Store object is found inside the container for that server in Exchange System Manager (see Figure 6.6). To access the store ‚ s property pages, right-click the Public Folder Store object, and select Properties from the shortcut menu.

Figure 6.6: Viewing the public folder store

Most of the property pages for the public folder store are used to control the replication of public folders to other Exchange servers. These pages, and replication itself, are discussed later in the chapter. The one property page that is important now is named Limits, shown in Figure 6.7.

Figure 6.7: The Limits property page for the public folder store

When a user deletes a message from a folder, that message is marked as hidden and is actually kept on the server for a certain number of days before being permanently deleted. Within that period, called the deleted-item retention time , the user can recover the item. To do so, however, the user must be using Microsoft Outlook 8.03 or a later version. Outlook 2003 is considered to be version 11.0, Outlook XP is considered to be version 10.0, and so forth. Simply set the number of days that you want to keep deleted items on the server. The default setting is 0. In addition, you can specify that items not be permanently removed from the Information Store until at least one backup has occurred.

You can also use the Limits property page to set a default storage limit for public folders in a public folder store. This storage limit represents a size (in kilobytes) that the public folders can reach before a storage warning is issued to the folders ‚ contacts. You can override this storage limit at the folder level for individual folders, as you ‚ ll see a bit later in the chapter.

The final limit that you can set on the Limits property page is the default number of days for which items are kept in the public folders for the public folder store. The default is no age limit at all.

Note ‚

Public folder age limits work in combination with deleted-item retention time. Suppose that you set a 10-day age limit on your public folders and a 6-day deleted-item retention period. An item is deleted on day 9 ‚ one day before it would automatically expire. The deleted-item retention period starts at this point. If the item is recovered within the deleted-item retention period, the age limit for the newly recovered item is reset to add 10 more days.

Examining Public Folder Store Subcontainers

The Public Folder Store container in System Manager (refer to Figure 6.6) has a number of subcontainers that offer valuable information about your public store and the folders inside:

The Logons container provides information about who is logged on and using public folders.
The Public Folder Instances container lets you view the folders in a public store, configure properties of a folder (discussed in the next section), and configure replication of a folder (discussed later in the chapter).

The Public Folders container provides details such as the path , size, and number of items inside the public folders in the store.

The Replication Status container lists all folders and the number of servers that contain a replica of each folder. It also lists the current replication state and the time of the last replication. Replication of public folders is discussed later in the chapter.

The Full-Text Indexing container shows the current state of the indexing of public folders in the store. This is covered in Chapter 9, ‚“Configuring the Information Store. ‚½

Configuring Public Folder Properties

Public folders are also managed at the individual folder level in the Exchange System Manager console. This management is performed using the property pages of the folders themselves . As with the public folder store property pages, a number of the property pages for the folder deal with replication, which is discussed later. The two pages that are important here are the General and Limits pages.

General Properties

The General property page, shown in Figure 6.8, lets you change the description of the folder that appears in the GAL. You ‚ ll also find an option named Maintain Per-User Read And Unread Information For This Folder. If you select this option, then the folder itself will keep track of and mark as read messages that each individual user of the folder has read. If a folder has been mail-enabled, as mentioned previously, another important setting is added to the General page. The Address List Name field governs whether you want the name that is visible in address books to be the same as the public folder name or a different name that you can enter.

Figure 6.8: Setting general properties for a public folder

Limits Properties

The Limits property page, shown in Figure 6.9, defines messaging limits for the public folder. You can define the following limits on this property sheet:

Storage Limits indicate the amount of disk space, in kilobytes, a folder can take up before a warning is issued to the folder ‚ s owner. This setting works the same way that the setting at the public folder store level works, as discussed previously. Any settings made at the public folder level override settings made for the server.
Deletion Settings define the number of days that deleted messages are retained in the folder before being permanently removed. You can use the default defined for the public folder store level or override those settings for this particular folder.
Age Limits set the maximum amount of time in days that a message remains in this public folder before it expires , or you can use the defaults set at the public folder store level.

Figure 6.9: Setting messaging limits for a public folder