Multitiered, Replicated, Secure Forms Library

Locating new applications in an organization can be a hard thing to do because they exist in so many places. For example, an application can exist on one of many possible file servers. Although the emergence of intranets has enhanced the ability to find applications, you still have to find the site with explicit links to the information you want. And if you do find the web server that has the application, you might have to connect to a server halfway around the globe, making connection speeds to that application very slow.

Exchange Server's multitiered, replicated, secure forms library makes it easier to locate applications. The Exchange Server forms library is divided into four main components: an Organizational Forms Library, a folder forms library, a Personal Forms Library, and a web forms library. Some of these libraries can be synchronized offline, so users can work with the applications, even when the users are disconnected from the network. You can choose which of these is best for your application.

NOTE

---

The web forms library has not yet been given an official name. However, web forms library is the name that I will be using throughout the book when referring to it.

Organizational Forms Library

The Organizational Forms Library contains, most often, forms that everyone in an organization needs access to, such as vacation requests, business cards, and travel expense reports. The Organizational Forms Library is contained on the Exchange Server and can be replicated to servers throughout your network, so access to these forms is fast. It lists all the available applications throughout an organization. Figure 3-18 shows an Organizational Forms Library in Microsoft Outlook 98.

Figure 3-18 You can publish your application in the Organizational Forms Library, and it will automatically be available to your users.

The Organizational Forms Library is secure, so administrators can set which users have permissions to publish or edit information in the forms library. It is also multilingual; the Exchange Server presents the server-based forms library that corresponds to the language of the client program accessing the forms library. For example, when a Japanese client requests a list of forms in the Organizational Forms Library, the Exchange Server displays all the corresponding Japanese forms. This multilingual capability allows you to customize and deploy your applications to the correct client without writing any code.

Folder Forms Library

The folder forms library is for folder-specific forms. The folder forms library is more secure than the Organizational Forms Library. You would post forms you do not want to share globally in the folder forms library. The forms stored in a personal folder forms library are shared only with the users to whom you give access. The forms stored in a public folder forms library can be shared with any user who has the correct permission on that public folder. Using the synchronization capabilities of Exchange Server, users can replicate public folders (including their data and forms) offline.

Personal Forms Library

The Personal Forms Library is the most restrictive in terms of sharing its forms with other users; this library "belongs" to a particular user and cannot be shared with any other user in the organization. All forms in the Personal Forms Library can be used both on and off the network. Users can test forms in the Personal Forms Library before publishing them to the Organizational Forms Library or folder forms library.

Web Forms Library

The web forms library is a hierarchy of folders stored in the Windows NT file system where your web server, IIS, runs Outlook Web Access. Exchange Server supports HTML forms as a development environment, so Outlook Web Access has an easy and automatic way for web developers to publish custom forms in the web forms library. To create an HTML-based application, you need only to create a subdirectory in the file system where Outlook Web Access is stored and copy your HTML files to it. The new form will appear in the Launch Custom Forms window of Outlook Web Access. Users can then start working with the application from the web forms library. Figure 3-19 shows forms in the web forms library.

Figure 3-19 The web forms library holds HTML applications that you develop for your organization.