Using Microsoft Outlook to Collaborate

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Using Microsoft Outlook to Collaborate
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Author:	Sue Mosher
Published:	January 1998
Copyright:	1998
Publisher:	29th Street Press

Abstract
Exchanging email is just one example of the many ways Outlook can help individuals and groups collaborate in their work. But email isn't the only method. This chapter covers how to use and design public folders and how to share mailboxes and send mail on behalf of other users.

Exchanging e-mail is just one example of the many ways Outlook can help individuals and groups collaborate in their work. But e-mail isn't the only method. If you connect to Microsoft Exchange Server, you can also

store information about customers and prospects in a public
Contacts folder
monitor another user's mailbox, respond to that person's messages, and use their Contacts folder
subscribe a public folder rather than your own individual mail address to an Internet mailing list

In this chapter, we cover how to use and design public folders and how to share mailboxes and send mail on behalf of other users.

WHY MICROSOFT EXCHANGE SERVER IS REQUIRED

This chapter is for Microsoft Exchange Server users only. In the initial release of Microsoft Outlook, it is only with the full Microsoft Exchange Server that you can share mailboxes, send e-mail on behalf of other users, and design and manage public folders for an organization. Microsoft Mail doesn't support mailbox sharing, nor is its implementation of shared folders compatible with the Contacts, Calendar, and other special Outlook folders.

Microsoft has recognized that this leaves out many small organizations looking mainly for the ability to share contacts and calendars as they could with Microsoft Schedule+. Look for future versions of Outlook to support folder sharing without Exchange Server.

USING PUBLIC FOLDERS

Public folders are the foundation that Microsoft Exchange Server uses to build applications that help groups of people work more efficiently. By placing information in a shared location and enhancing it with automatic assistants and custom forms, Outlook can become more than just a place to get your mail.

For Outlook users, a very important type of public folder is a shared Contacts list, which we explore with examples in this section. If you want to follow along and create your own public Contacts folder, check with your Exchange Server administrator to find out whether you have permission to create public folders and where in the public folder hierarchy you should create such a folder.

Types of Folders
Public folders come in many flavors, but we can classify them into several basic types:

Reference — personnel policies, product literature, and other information that doesn't change frequently
News — news feeds, messages from mailing lists, newsgroup messages, and other information that changes rapidly
Discussion — topics and responses to those topics (and responses to the responses); similar to newsgroups but internal to your organization
Tracking — customer contact items, group calendars, and workflow applications

Public folders can be organized by department, by geographic region, by product line, or any number of other different ways. Take some time to familiarize yourself with the public folder structure in your organization. (See Figure 19.1 for an example.) Look for an area where you can create your own public folders to share information with your colleagues.

If many people in the organization are using Outlook, you can use a Contacts public folder to maintain information about customers, suppliers, and other correspondents. See "Working with the Outlook Address Book" in Chapter 15 for details about how to add a public Contacts folder to your Address Book.

Although the original version of Outlook does not have the ability to read and post directly to Internet newsgroups, Exchange Server 5.0 can host newsgroups as public folders. Outlook users can read and post messages to the newsgroups using folder post forms (see "Posting and Replying to Items" below). By putting a newsgroup folder in your Favorites folder, you can track new items (see "Adding a Folder to Favorites" in Chapter 9).

Working with Public Folders
The main Public Folders folder in the Folder List has two subfolders, Favorites and All Public Folders.

Favorites, where you keep shortcuts to frequently used public folders, is empty when you first start using Outlook. We covered Favorites in "Using the Favorites Folder" in Chapter 9. When you encounter a public folder for the first time, take a moment to explore. Look at the View, Current View menu and experiment with the different available views to get an understanding of how the information in the folder is organized.

Then look at the Compose menu. Here you'll find commands for posting to the folder, with either the standard post forms or any custom forms the folder uses.

Posting and Replying to Items
Many public folders let you use the standard Outlook post form to add items. Choose Compose, New Post in This Folder to display the New Post form, shown in Figure 19.2.

Notice how this form differs from the e-mail message form:

There's no To or Cc field.
Instead of a Send button, there's a Post button.

You can use rich-text formatting, attached files, and embedded objects in posted items, just as in messages. However, if you are posting to an Internet newsgroup via a public folder, the rich-text formatting will be visible only to your colleagues using the local public folder.

When you've completed an item for posting, click the Post button. Another way to post to a public folder is by sending an e-mail message to the folder's address. See "E-mailing to Public Folders" under "Tips and Tricks" at the end of this chapter.

Posting with Custom Forms
Many folders are designed to use custom forms to enter information in a more structured format, lending itself to more powerful views and Folder Assistant rules, which work much like Inbox Assistant rules (see Chapter 17). Look on the bottom of the Compose menu for choices available in any particular folder. Sometimes these choices depend on the item currently selected (or opened) in Outlook. For example, Figure 19.3 depicts the Compose menu for a customer account tracking folder. You can either enter a New Account or choose to "Add account contact" or "add product entry" for the currently selected account. Similarly, in folders intended for use as discussion groups, you may see custom reply forms that let you comment on a topic. (If you don't see a Post button on a custom form, choose File, Save to post it.)

Designing a Public Folder
Public folders generally include many design elements:

Views
Forms
Folder Assistant rules
Permissions
Other public folder settings

Each of these elements should be tested before you release the public folder for general use.

In the following sections, we discuss how some of the folder techniques you already know, such as views, are combined with other elements to create a public folder application.

Creating a Public Folder
Before creating your first public folder, check with the system administrator to find out where you have permission to create new folders. On some Exchange Server installations, you may not be allowed to create a new top-level folder (one immediately below the All Public Folders folder). You may be restricted to creating new subfolders under only certain public folders.

One way to create a folder is with the File, New, Folder command (see "Creating a Folder" in Chapter 9).

You can also create a new public folder by copying an existing folder. Follow these steps:

With the Folder List displayed (choose View, Folder List), select the folder. If the Folder List is not visible, switch to the folder you want to copy.
Right-click the name of the folder either in the Folder List or in the Folder Banner above the Information Viewer, then choose Copy (the name of the folder).
In the Copy Folder dialog box, select the parent folder where you want the copy of the folder to be placed.
Click OK to copy all items, views, and forms from the source folder.

When you copy a folder (see "Copying the Design from Another Folder" below), any items, views, and forms it contains are copied, but other design elements, such as custom fields (see "Adding Your Own Fields" in Chapter 15) and permissions (covered later in this chapter), need to be set separately.

Because several tasks are involved in creating a public folder, you should restrict access to the folder while you're working on it. Follow these steps:

Right-click the name of the folder either in the Folder List or in the Folder Banner above the Information Viewer, then choose Properties.
In the Properties dialog box, switch to the Administration tab (Figure 19.4).
Under This Folder Is Available To, select "Owners only."
Click OK to close the Properties dialog box.

When you're ready to publish the folder, return to the Properties dialog box and select "All users with access permission."

Copying the Design from Another Folder
There is a way to copy the complete folder design — permissions, rules, description, forms, and views — from another folder in a single operation. Follow these steps:

Switch to the public folder you are designing (the folder you want to copy design elements to).
Choose File, Folder, Copy Folder Design.
In the Copy Design From dialog box (Figure 19.5), select the folder whose design you want to copy.
Check the design elements (Permissions, Rules, Description, Forms & Views) that you want to use in the new folder.
Click OK to complete the operation.

Once you have copied properties to the new public folder, you may want to check and update them, as described in the next section.

Setting Public Folder Properties
Public folders have the same properties as other Outlook folders, plus some new ones. Properties specific to public folders include

Whether items copied or moved to the folder show the name of the original sender or the name of the person who moved the item
Permissions for users to work with folder items and create new subfolders
Folder Assistant rules, which work much like the Inbox Assistant rules (see Chapter 17)
Under Exchange Server 5.0, whether a moderator reviews new items before releasing them to the folder

All these properties are found in the Properties dialog box for the folder. To view the Properties dialog box, right-click the folder name (either in the Folder List or above the Information Viewer), then choose File, Properties. (You can also choose File, Folder, Properties.) The Outlook Address Book tab is not part of the definition of the folder (see "Working with the Outlook Address Book" in Chapter 15). The Internet News tab applies only to Internet newsfeeds, a feature of Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0 that must be set up by an Exchange Server administrator.

Let's walk through the General, Administration, Forms, and Permissions tabs on the folder Properties dialog box. (You see all these tabs only for folders where you are the owner. For other folders, you see the General and Summary tabs instead.)

General Settings
On the General tab of the folder Properties dialog box (Figure 19.6), you can change the name of the folder and enter a Description.

While you might not add a description to a folder created in your mailbox or Personal Folders File, a public folder definitely needs one. It should explain briefly the purpose for the folder and describe how the folder should be used.

If this folder is for use by Outlook users, under "When posting to this folder," choose the form that should be displayed when the user chooses Compose, New Post in This Folder. This usually is either a form created just for this folder or one of Outlook's built-in forms. If this folder is for use by Outlook users and Exchange users, check "Automatically generate Microsoft Exchange views." This will make sure that the same display views are available to Exchange users.

Administration Settings
At the top of the Administration tab (Figure 19.7), select the "Initial view on folder" that you want users to see when they open the folder. You can choose from a few default views available for all folders and any views that have been designated for use specifically with this folder.

If you don't see the view you want, you need to either create it (see "Customizing Folders" in Chapter 9) or copy an existing view. For example, if you are creating a Customer Contacts public folder and want users to start in the Address Cards view, follow these steps to copy an Address Cards view to the folder:

From the main Outlook menu, choose View, Define Views.
In the Define Views for "Customer Contacts" dialog box, select the Address Cards view, then click Copy.
In the Copy View dialog box (Figure 19.8) change the name from "Copy of Address Cards" to something else, perhaps "Customer Address Cards," so users can distinguish this view from their own default Address Cards view.
Under "Can be used on," select "This folder, visible to everyone."
Click OK. This will display the View Settings dialog box, where you can make any desired changes to the view. Click OK again when you are done with View Settings.
Click Close to close the Define Views dialog box.

Outlook lets you choose whether items copied or moved to the folder show either the name of the original sender or the name of the person who moved the item. This is done on the Administrator tab with the "Drag/Drop posting is a" list. (Note that this affects any moved or copied items, not just those dragged to a folder.) If you want copied or moved items to show the original sender, set "Drag/Drop posting is a" to Move/Copy. If instead you want copied or moved items to show the person who moved the item, set "Drag/Drop posting is a" to Forward.

Click Personal Address Book to copy the public folder's e-mail address to your PAB. See "E-mailing to Public Folders" under "Tips and Tricks" at the end of this chapter. (If you don't see an Administration tab for a folder, look on the Summary tab for the Personal Address Book button.)

We looked at the "This folder is available to" setting earlier under "Creating a Folder."

Click Folder Assistant to add rules that automatically send replies to folder postings or perform other actions, much like the Rules Wizard or Inbox Assistant (see Chapter 17).

Click Moderated Folder if you want items to be screened before they are published in the public folder. You might want to do this for a Customer Contacts folder for which many people have permission to add new items. This feature is available only with Exchange Server 5.0. Figure 19.9 shows the settings available for moderated folders.

Forms Settings
The Forms tab (Figure 19.10) lists any custom forms you have installed in the folder. To add forms from another source, click Manage to bring up the Forms Manager (see "Managing Forms" in Chapter 18).

If you want to restrict users to posting items only with the custom forms for a folder, select "Only forms listed above." Note that if you do impose such a restriction, any user who tries to post to the form by sending an e-mail message will receive an Undeliverable notice in the Inbox saying, "The message could not be delivered because the folder does not accept this form."

Permissions Settings
Access to the contents of the folder is controlled through the Permissions tab, shown in Figure 19.11. The most common permissions are grouped into roles, with Owner having the most control over a folder and None the lowest (in fact, no access at all).

Two other roles are possible — None and Custom. Specify the None role when you want to prohibit all access to the folder and hide the folder. The Custom role is automatically assigned when you select properties in any combination other than those shown in Table 19.1. For example, you might want to assign a group of supervisors the right to delete items, but not edit them, so that you can have a crew to clean up the folder from time to time.

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