Public Folder Issues

[Guest]

The more I work with Public Folders the more confused I am as to their
limitations. Your public contacts journal entries drop into the personal
journal box not Public so I've had to spend an inordinate amount of time
fixing a work around of that problem (which is still not complete).
Now, I see that when I create a new contact and need to add a new category
to the master category the new category only appears on my machine. Not
everyone in the office.
What is the point of having Public Information when everything still keeps
defaulting to personal?
Will this have to be yet again another work around?

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Public folders simply were never designed to do what you're trying to make them do. They work fine for shared calendars and shared contact lists and for a number of other purposes.

The master category list is always local to the user, by design. If you want to enforce certain categories for items in a particular folder, you can do that with a custom form.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Guest]

Then maybe you can help me set up our organization correctly with Outlook
2003 for exchange server before I get too deep.
We have five employees and we all manage the same 140 clients. We also all
work sometimes from the main office or home or on the road. We need a common
calendar, common contacts and journals where we all know what going on with
our business.
I've been pursuring the route of using the public folders. Can you please
give me your advice of what you would do?
Thanks,
MB

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Calendar and contacts work like the similar folders in your mailbox. Create new items there as you need to. Make sure each person has these folders in Public Folders\Favorites so they can take them on the road.

A common journal just isn't possible without a lot of work or a third-party tool. For a real contact management application that works with Outlook, see http://www.slipstick.com/addins/contact_management.htm

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Guest]

We purchased the Business Contact Manager program - would that help our
situation?

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

BCM has some sharing capability, but I think it works only computer-to-computer, not over the Internet unless you set up a virtual private network.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Guest]

We do have a VPN. Sorry to keep asking you so many questions - but I'm so
optimistic that I can bend Outlook to my will. I'm getting closer.

I still am curious as to why MS would not want to design Outlook to be a CRM
application? Seems like a good idea to me. Do you have Bill Gates number,
maybe I'll make a suggestion.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Outlook does what it does pretty well (and even better in each successive version). But it is NOT a relational database, which is what CRM requires to handle its tracking activity and company-specific customization. Microsoft makes CRM products -- BCM (with minimal customization) for single users and small workgroup peer-to-peer sharing and MS CRM, a more full-blown CRM solution.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

We do have a VPN. Sorry to keep asking you so many questions - but I'm so
optimistic that I can bend Outlook to my will. I'm getting closer.

I still am curious as to why MS would not want to design Outlook to be a CRM
application? Seems like a good idea to me. Do you have Bill Gates number,
maybe I'll make a suggestion.