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

To add a new Name to the list of users with permissions for the folder, follow these steps:

Click the Add button.
In the left column of the Add Users dialog box, select the individual(s) or distribution list(s) for which you want to assign permissions.
Click the Add button to copy those names to Add Users column on the right.
Click OK to return to the folder Properties dialog box.
Assign permissions for the new name(s).

Remember that to give access to anyone other than folder owners, you must switch to the Administration tab (Figure 19.8) and select "All users with access permission."

A few additional points on permissions:

To see the permissions you have for folders where you are not the folder owner, look on the Summary tab instead of the Permissions tab.
New folders inherit the permissions of their parent folder.
Mailboxes use the same permissions roles as public folders (see "Granting Access" below).

SHARING MAILBOX FOLDERS

Other users can be granted access to the Outlook folders in your own mailbox — either full access or permission to send messages using your e-mail address. Here are some examples where this might be useful:

An executive assistant might be granted access to his boss's mailbox so that he can read and respond to any of her messages.
Members of a customer support group might share a Support mailbox to which help desk forms are sent and handle responses from that mailbox rather than from their individual mailboxes.
A sales group might share a Sales mailbox to which information requests are routed from the company's Web site. They might send responses from their individual mailboxes to establish a personal relationship with potential customers.

Granting Access
Setting up a shared mailbox, such as that for the customer service or sales group described above, is a task that must be handled by the Exchange Server administrator. Also, you cannot grant total access to your mailbox, including Send As permission, to another user. The Exchange Server administrator must do that. (It's done by granting permission to the other user's Windows NT account.) But you do have the power to let other users open your folders and handle items in your mailbox. Follow these steps:

Choose Tools, Options, then switch to the Delegates tab (Figure 19.12).
Click the Add button.
In the Add Users dialog box (Figure 19.13), select names from the left column, then click the Add button to move them to the Add Users column on the right. When you've finished adding users, click OK.
In the Delegate Permissions dialog box (Figure 19.14), select the type of access you want to grant for each of the main Outlook folders. The choices are:
- None
- Reviewer (can read items)
- Author (can read and create items)
- Editor (can read, create, and modify items)
Click OK twice to close the Delegate Permissions dialog box and the Options dialog box.

Special Note: If you do not see the Delegates tab, then you need to use the Add-in Manager to install the Dlgsetp.ecf add-in. (See "Using the Add-In Manager," in Chapter 3.)

Granting access via the Delegates tab gives another user the ability to open the Inbox, Contacts, or other default Outlook folder using the Open Special Folder command (see "Using Open Special Folder" later in this chapter). It also gives the other user permission to send messages on your behalf (see "Sending for Another User" later in this chapter).

Do not use the Delegates tab in either of the following situations:

You want to grant a user permission to view folders but do not want to grant "Send on Behalf Of" permission.
You want to give another user access to folders other than Calendar, Contacts, Inbox, Journal, Notes, or Tasks.

In these cases, you must handle access by granting permissions for individual folders. To grant permission for a folder, right-click its name in the Folder List or in the Folder Banner above the Information Viewer, choose Properties, then switch to the Permissions tab, shown in Figure 19.11. See "Permissions Settings" earlier in this chapter for details about how to use this tab.

To give another user access to one or more folders in your mailbox, first grant the Reviewer role for the top-level folder, the one labeled "Mailbox — " plus your name. Otherwise, the other user will not be able to see any of the individual folders when he or she opens your mailbox. Then, grant permissions for the specific folders that you want the other user to work with. When the user opens your mailbox (see "Adding Another Mailbox to Your Profile" later in this chapter), (s)he will see only those folders that you have specifically given him or her permission to work with.

Caution: New folders inherit the permissions of their parent folder. If you grant Reviewer permission for the top-level Mailbox folder, any new folder created beneath it will also have Reviewer permission. It's always a good idea to check the permissions of new folders you create to make sure that you have not inadvertently granted greater access than you intended.

Send As vs. Send on Behalf Of
There are actually two different permissions that let you send from another mailbox. The Delegates tab procedure in the previous section grants "Send on Behalf Of" permission. The other similar permission, which can be granted only by the Exchange Server administrator, is called "Send As."

The major difference is that the Send As permission hides the name of the actual sender. When Marvin Arias uses his Send As permission to send a message as Mark Brown, recipients see only Mark Brown on the From field. There is no indication that Marvin Arias actually sent the message.

On the other hand, if Marvin Arias has only Send on Behalf Of permission, recipients will see Mark Brown's name in the From column in the Information Viewer but both Marvin Arias's name and Mark Brown's name on the incoming message, as shown in Figure 19.15.

Sending for Another User
Regardless whether you have Send As or Send on Behalf Of permission for another user, the procedure for sending a message for that user is the same. After you start the new message, follow these steps:

In the new message window, choose View, From Field.
Enter the name of person you're sending for in the From box, as shown in Figure 19.16. (Or, click the From button to select the name from the Address Book.)
Complete and send the message as usual. If you don't have permission to send for this person, you'll get a message to that effect.

Opening Other Users' Folders
Outlook provides two methods for opening another user's folders:

Use File, Open Special Folder, Exchange Server Folder to open a single folder of another user
Make another user's mailbox part of your own Outlook profile

For the most part, which you use depends on your role in working with the other folder. If another user uses the Delegates tab to give you access to see just one or two folders, then Open Special Folder is the technique you should use.

If, however, you regularly work with several folders — Inbox, Calendar, Contacts, and so on — as an assistant might for a boss, then it is more efficient to include that mailbox in your profile. If a mailbox is part of your profile, you can see it in the Folder List and can add its folders to the Outlook Bar.

You also need to use the second technique to access folders other than the Inbox, Contacts, Calendar, Journal, Notes, or Tasks.

Using the Open Special Folder Technique
To open a single folder from another user's mailbox,

Choose File, Open Special Folder, Exchange Server Folder.
In the Open Exchange Server Folder dialog box (Figure 19.17), type the user's name in the box provided or click Name to choose from the Global Address List.
Choose the Folder you want to open, then click OK.

If the user has given you permission to open the folder, it will appear in its own Outlook window. If you do not have permission, you will get the message, "Unable to display the folder. The folder could not be found."

If you quit Outlook without closing the special folder, it will open automatically the next time you start Outlook.

Adding Another Mailbox to Your Profile
To add another mailbox to your profile, follow these steps:

Choose Tools, Services.
Select Microsoft Exchange Server, then click the Properties button.
Switch to the Advanced tab (Figure 19.18) and click the Add button.
In the Add Mailbox dialog box, enter the name of the mailbox you want to open, then click OK. Outlook will try to match the mailbox name against the Global Address List and, if successful, will add it to the Open These Additional Mailboxes list.
When you've finished adding mailboxes, click OK twice to return to the Information Viewer.

When you add a mailbox to your profile, you get immediate access to it in the Folder List. It is not necessary to exit and restart Outlook.

A few more points on working with other mailboxes:

Outlook does not check to see whether you have the proper access permission for a mailbox until you try to use it. If you don't have permission, when you try to view the mailbox, you get the message "Unable to display the folder."
To remove a mailbox from your profile, return to the Advanced tab of the Microsoft Exchange Server Properties dialog box (Figure 19.18), select the mailbox, then click Remove.
You can add folders from another mailbox to your Outlook Bar (see "Working with the Outlook Bar" in Chapter 9). Change the name of the Outlook Bar shortcut to distinguish the other mailbox's folders from your own.

TIPS AND TRICKS

Let's wind up this chapter about Outlook collaboration with a few more tips on Exchange Server Public Folders.

Subscribing a Public Folder to a Mailing List
When many people in your organization are interested in a particular topic, bringing messages from a related Internet mailing list into a public folder is far more efficient than receiving them in your Inbox and using a Rules Wizard rule to distribute them.

Follow these steps to subscribe a public folder to a mailing list:

Create the public folder.
Edit the permissions for the Default user to grant "Create items" permission.
Set the initial view to "Group by Conversation Topic" or create a view to group items by subject.
Send a message to subscribe to the mailing list. How this is done varies from list to list. In some cases, you can send a message from your own mailbox with the text "subscribe list address", where list is the name of the mailing list and address is the SMTP address of the public folder (see "E-mailing to Public Folders" below). In other cases, you may need to have Send As permission (see "Send As vs. Send on Behalf Of" earlier in this chapter) for the folder, in order to send a message using the public folder's address in the From box.

Here are a couple of additional points related to mailing lists in public folders:

If you ever need to delete the public folder, first follow the mailing list's instructions for unsubscribing. Otherwise, nondelivery reports will be bounced back for all messages sent to the folder.
To post to the list, users should send messages to the e-mail address provided by the list specifically for postings. (Responses posted in the public folder are not automatically forwarded to the list, as they would be in a newsgroup folder.) If the list is restricted to submissions only from list members, users need Send As permission for the public folder.

Shortcuts to Public Folders
One way to let other users know about new public folders is to send them an e-mail message with a shortcut in it. There are two ways to create a public folder shortcut. One is to type the name and location of the folder into a message, using syntax like this:


     <Outlook://Public Folders/All Public Folders/Getting Started Guide>

The angle brackets are required. In the message, this will appear in blue and underlined, just like an Internet URL. To create a shortcut to a particular item in a folder, prefix the subject of the item with a tilde (~), like this:


     <Outlook://Public Folders/All Public Folders/Getting Started Guide/~8c Scheduling Meetings>

The other method for creating a public folder shortcut is to drag the folder from the Outlook Folder List to the desktop. This creates an .xnk folder shortcut with the name of the folder, as shown in Figure 19.19. You can then insert this shortcut file into a mail message.

When you let other people know about the public folder, you might want to remind them to add it to their Public Folder Favorites, so they can track read and unread items more easily. Remember that you can add a Public Folder to Favorites only when you are connected to the Exchange server.

E-mailing to Public Folders
Public folders have their own e-mail addresses. As long as a folder is not restricted to a particular set of forms, you can use its address to post to the folder. This can be handy for posting to multiple newsgroups or posting to a public folder when you're working offline and don't have the folder in Favorites.

It's easy to add the address of a public folder to your Personal Address Book:

Select the folder, then choose File, Folder, Properties. Switch to the Administration or the Summary tab (depending on whether you are a folder owner).
Click the Personal Address Book button.
Click OK to close the Properties dialog box.

Creating Quick Links to Team Folders
If you work with a group of people and need to share each other's calendars, contacts, or other Outlook items, using Open Special Folder gets tedious. Here's another method that uses links for quick access to your team members' folders. We'll use the Calendar folder as an example:

Create a Team Calendars public folder to hold the shortcuts you'll be creating.
Have each member of the team grant appropriate permissions for the Calendar folder.
Have each member of the team drag the Calendar folder to the desktop to create a Calendar.xnk shortcut (see "Shortcuts to Public Folders" above), then rename it with their own name (John's Calendar, Abigail's Calendar, etc.).
Have each member of the team drag the renamed .xnk shortcut into the Team Calendars public folder.
Change the default view on the public folder so that it shows just the Subject field and maybe the Icon field.
In Outlook, display the Folder List and drag the new Team Calendars folder to the Outlook Bar to create a shortcut there. Each member of the team will probably want to do this.

When you're done, you should see something like this folder depicted in Figure 19.20. You can double-click any of the shortcuts to open a team member's calendar in its own window. Notice that the Outlook Bar includes a Team Calendars shortcut to this folder.

SUMMARY

We've covered a lot about public folders and collaborating with other Outlook users in this chapter. You now know how to copy settings from another folder, set various properties, and make a folder available to all users with the right permissions.

In addition, we've explored a couple of ways to collaborate on mail messages, by sharing all or part of your mailbox and by allowing other users to send messages on your behalf.

Here are some key points to remember:

Exchange Server public folders can be used for reference, news, discussion, and tracking applications.
Look on the Compose menu for different ways to post items and responses in a particular folder.
The Send on Behalf Of technique lets the recipient see the names of both the actual sender and the person on whose behalf the message was sent. To grant Send on Behalf Of permission to another user, use the Delegates tab in the Options dialog box.
Depending on the permissions you have been granted, you may be able to use Open Special Folder to see part of another user's mailbox. Or, you may need to add the mailbox to your own profile.

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