| Public Folders
Public folders are just like the calendar,
contacts and email folders in your mailbox, except
they're available to everyone in your workgroup.
This is one of the most exciting things about using
Outlook to access an Exchange server.
Possible uses
Calendar
A public calendar folder can hold
the schedule for a product rollout, trade show or any
company event.
Contacts
A Public folder of contacts can
hold your customers, suppliers and associates.
Consolidate all your phone lists into public folders on
the server and give people just the permissions they
need. Some of your people might need read-only access,
so they can look up numbers, but not enter changes. This
can solve so many problems.
Outlook contacts can contain notes, activities and
links to other items. Document things here and all your
team members can see what's going on. Rethink your
customer service based on this.
Documents
A public
documents folder can hold any type of document, such as
a price list or spec sheet in Excel or Word format. See
Web Folders for
more. Heard about document management systems? Here
you go. Keep your price list in a public folder and
everyone on your team gets updates automatically.
Discussions
A discussion folder is a great
place to kick around new ideas, and get everyone's
input. It's like a bulletin board or an internet
newsgroup. You create a posting just like you're
creating an email. But it doesn't go to an individual,
it is posted to the folder. You can post a new topic, or
reply to someone else's posting.
Public Folder Permissions
Public folders aren't really public. They're
accessible only to your workgroup. You set the
permissions easily in Outlook. You can grant or deny
access to any particular folder, to any particular
member of your workgroup. Security is assured. Here is a
screen shot from Outlook showing the permissions dialog
for a public folder.
Using Public Folders
Offline
Yes, you can use public folders offline, or online.
If you set a particular public folder for offline use,
Exchange will synchronize it when you check your mail.
Everyone on your team will automatically get the latest
information.
To use a public folder offline, follow the
instructions in the public folders
tech support page (link is for customers only -
requires username and password).
Public Folders vs. Delegates
Based on specific permissions that you control,
"delegates" in your workgroup can access your mailbox
directly from the server. This means your delegate can
review and edit your calendar at any time. Delegates can
also be granted access to your inbox, task list and
other folders.
But your calendar is still your calendar, even when
you've given a delegate access to it. A public folder is
normally available to everyone in your workgroup. For
example, you might keep all your customers in a public
folder of contacts, and keep your personal contacts,
such as friends and relatives, in your mailbox contacts
folder.
Contact us for access to a demo
account. Try out the service for
free.
If you would like to know more about Exchange server,
see www.microsoft.com/exchange
Need something different? We're a small business, so
we can be flexible. Drop
us a line.
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