Exchange & Outlook UPDATE, Outlook Edition, June 17, 2003

~~~~ This Issue Sponsored By ~~~~

Bindview http://list.winnetmag.com/cgi-bin3/DM/y/eRNr0HVYYl0CBg0BArn0AG

Windows & .NET Magazine http://list.winnetmag.com/cgi-bin3/DM/y/eRNr0HVYYl0CBg06cX0AM

1. Commentary - Collaborating with Calendars

2. Announcements - Windows & .NET Magazine Connections: Fall Dates Announced - Get the eBook That Will Help You Get Certified!

3. Resources - Tip: Editing the Formula Field in Outlook 98

4. Events - Security 2003 Road Show

5. New and Improved - Create DLs from Exchange Data

6. Contact Us - See this section for a list of ways to contact us.

~~~~ Sponsor: Bindview ~~~~ Learn from your Exchange peers! What do you NOT know about managing Exchange that your peers do? What tips can they provide? Tune in June 19 for a free Web Seminar "Managing and Securing Microsoft Exchange: A Peer Review," sponsored by BindView Corporation. Find out how your peers are improving their effectiveness and see how you can also benefit. Featured administrators are from Flextronics and Tahitian Noni International who manage from 500+ to 20,000+ mailboxes. They'll discuss managing Exchange policies, automating tasks, migrating to Exchange 2000, responding to HR and legal requests and much more. Register at http://list.winnetmag.com/cgi-bin3/DM/y/eRNr0HVYYl0CBg0BArn0AG

==== 1. Commentary: Collaborating with Calendars ==== by Patricia Cardoza, Guest News Editor, [email protected]

Outlook contains a variety of personal information manager (PIM) features, including Contacts, Tasks, Journal, and Calendar. Using Outlook's Calendar to track your appointments, meetings, events, and special occasions is a great way to increase your productivity. You can schedule meetings with other individuals as well as create reminders for upcoming appointments, meetings, or special events such as birthdays or anniversaries. Whenever I add someone's birthday to my calendar, I set a reminder 10 days earlier so that I have time to buy and send that person a card.

Although the Calendar is a powerful feature right out of the box, it also has some collaborative features you can use after a few simple enhancements. If you work in a typical office environment, you probably schedule meetings with certain groups of people on a regular basis. You can use Outlook 2002's Group Schedule tool to add individuals to a specific group, called a group schedule. Then, when you want to schedule a meeting with the group, you can see each person's free/busy information with just a couple of clicks. To set up a group schedule, navigate to your Calendar folder and select View Group Schedules from the Actions menu. Click New to create a new group schedule, name your group schedule, and click OK. You can then add individuals within your Exchange Server organization to the group schedule. After you've created a group schedule, you can click Make Meeting in the View Group Schedules dialog box to quickly set up a meeting with all the group schedule members. You can use the same dialog box to send a message to everyone in the group schedule. You can create as many group schedules as you need.

If you want to create a master calendar for all the employees in your organization, consider using a public folder on your Exchange server. You can grant Author permissions to everyone in your organization to let them create new appointments and meetings as well as edit and delete their own appointments and meetings. Author permissions prevent users from editing or deleting appointments and meetings created by others. Using a public calendar folder on the Exchange server lets everyone see major company events or determine the time and location of departmental meetings.

If you need to collaborate and don't have access to an Exchange server, you can use the Microsoft Office Internet Free/Busy Service with Outlook 2002 to share your calendar with others. This service isn't perfectly intuitive to use or even always 100 percent reliable, but it might be better than nothing. To configure the Free/Busy Service, select Options from the Outlook Calendar Tools menu. Click Calendar Options, Free/Busy Options. To use the Free/Busy Service, you must have a Microsoft Passport ID and password. Select "Publish and search using Microsoft Office Internet Free/Busy Service," then click Manage to configure your Free/Busy options. These steps open your browser to the Internet Free/Busy Service home page and let you sign in with your current Passport account or create a new one. After you've signed in, you can enable Outlook to work with the Free/Busy Service at the displayed Web page. After you do so, an ActiveX control will send information between Outlook and the Free/Busy Service. You can use the Free/Busy Service's Web site to grant permission to other users to see your free/busy information. Although the Free/Busy Service isn't quite as easy to use for collaboration as an Exchange server, it can provide some Exchange-like sharing abilities for standalone users.

~~~~ Sponsor: Windows & .NET Magazine ~~~~ Insider's Guide to IT Certification eBook Get the eBook that will help you get certified! The "Insider's Guide to IT Certification," from the Windows & .NET Magazine Network, has one goal: to help you save time and money on your quest for certification. Find out how to choose the best study guides, save hundreds of dollars, and be successful as an IT professional. The amount of time you spend reading this book will be more than made up by the time you save preparing for your certification exams. Order your copy today! http://list.winnetmag.com/cgi-bin3/DM/y/eRNr0HVYYl0CBg06cX0AM

==== 2. Announcements ==== (from Windows & .NET Magazine and its partners)

Windows & .NET Magazine Connections: Fall Dates Announced Jump-start your fall 2003 training plans by securing your seat for Windows & .NET Magazine Connections Fall, scheduled for November 2 through 6, 2003, in Orlando, Florida. Register now to receive the lowest possible registration fee. Call 800-505-1201 or 203-268-3204 for more information. http://www.devconnections.com

Get the eBook That Will Help You Get Certified! The "Insider's Guide to IT Certification," from the Windows & .NET Magazine Network, has one goal: to help you save time and money on your quest for certification. Find out how to choose the best study guides, save hundreds of dollars, and be successful as an IT professional. The amount of time you spend reading this book will be more than made up by the time you save preparing for your certification exams. Order your copy today! http://winnet.bookaisle.com/ebookcover.asp?ebookid=13475

==== 3. Resources ====

Tip: Editing the Formula Field in Outlook 98 by Sue Mosher, [email protected]

Q: I made a mistake while creating a new formula field in Outlook 98. How can I edit the formula?

A: You might think that you could edit the formula by selecting View, Current View, Customize Current View, Fields, and using the Show Fields dialog box, which contains a Properties button. However, that button is disabled for custom formula fields.

To perform your edit, first make sure that the field you want to edit appears in a table view. If it doesn't, right-click the column headings, then select Field Chooser. Drag the field from the Field Chooser to the view. Right-click the column headings again and choose Format Columns. In the Format Columns dialog box, go to the "Available fields" list and select the field whose formula you want to change. You can edit directly in the Formula box or click the "..." button to open the formula editor, in which you can select fields and functions.

See the Exchange & Outlook Administrator Web site for more great tips from Sue Mosher. http://www.exchangeadmin.com

==== 4. Events ==== (brought to you by Windows & .NET Magazine)

Security 2003 Road Show Join Mark Minasi and Paul Thurrott as they deliver sound security advice at our popular Security 2003 Road Show event. http://www.winnetmag.com/roadshows/security2003

==== 5. New and Improved ==== by Carolyn Mader, [email protected]

Create DLs from Exchange Data Advantage International released 2Xchange, a query program that lets you create distribution lists (DLs) from Exchange Server data and export the DLs to Outlook. You can assign friendly names to fields from the original data source to make querying easier for a user without database experience, and you can hide fields in the original data source from the query maker. After you run a query, 2Xchange can send communications to the DL through email, Internet-based fax, or printouts. One domain license with unlimited users sells for $1995. Additional domain licenses are $1000 each. Contact Advantage at 800-837-8636 or [email protected]. http://www.diditbetter.com

~~~~ Sponsored Links ~~~~

FaxBack Integrate FAX into Exchange/Outlook (Whitepaper, ROI, Trial) http://www.faxback.com/w2ksponorlink

==== 6. Contact Us ====

About the newsletter -- [email protected] About technical questions -- http://www.winnetmag.com/forums About product news -- [email protected] About sponsoring Exchange & Outlook UPDATE -- [email protected]