Chapter 17 -- Public Folder Management

Chapter 17

About This Chapter

The information store of Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server is partitioned into two store types—mailbox store and public store. Mailbox stores, as their name implies, contain mailboxes that typically belong to individual users. Public stores, on the other hand, hold public folders, which are available to every user in the organization. Public folders can also be used to share information across organizations and across the Internet. They are an ideal foundation for advanced workgroup and workflow applications, as well as for information and knowledge management solutions.

Using Microsoft Outlook 2000, you can create powerful collaboration systems with minimum effort that provide a tremendous benefit for the organization. A discussion forum, for example, is perhaps the simplest form of a public folder application. A discussion forum is a public folder that contains message items. A document management system is a similar repository. It stores Microsoft Office documents instead of messages. A public folder that holds task elements, on the other hand, could be used as a team management solution. A public journal allows managers to track activities for a team. Public calendars can inform employees about holidays and company events. You also can create public folders that contain contact objects, providing your human resources department with a simple employee tracking system. In Chapter 1, "Introduction to Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server," you used this approach to implement a phone book for external contacts.

This chapter covers the management of public folders that reside on a single Exchange 2000 server. It discusses public folder concepts and the administration of public stores.

Before You Begin

To complete this chapter:

• Prepare your test environment according to the descriptions given in the "Getting Started" section of "About This Book." It is assumed that you have followed the exercises of previous chapters. Otherwise, make sure your Exchange 2000 servers are placed in separate routing groups that are connected using a Routing Group, SMTP, or X.400 Connector, as demonstrated in the exercises of Chapter 16, "Message Routing Administration." Use Active Directory Users and Computers to move the Administrator mailbox to BLUESKY-SRV2 and verify that the mailbox of Carl Titmouse resides on BLUESKY-SRV1.
• You should be familiar with Microsoft Outlook 2000 installed in a workgroup and collaboration environment and configured to connect to Exchange 2000 Server, as explained in Chapter 9, "MAPI-Based Clients."
• You need to have a general understanding of how Internet-based clients can access Exchange 2000 resources, as illustrated in Chapter 11, "Internet-Based Client Access."