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January 01, 1999

Implementing a Group Mailbox or Public Folder


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You find them on the Contact Us page of virtually every Web site—email addresses such as sales@mycompany.com, info@mycompany.com, and support@mycompany.com. You can put such addresses to work in your company or organization. You just need to add a mailbox to Microsoft Exchange Server and give various people access to the incoming messages.

In this article, I'll describe a plan for setting up such a mailbox for a customer support group and making it available to the staff through an icon on the Outlook Bar. I'll also look at an alternative approach, using a public folder. First, however, you need to make a key decision: How do you want the staff to respond to messages?

Types of Responses
Do you want the customer support staff to respond with their own email accounts, or behind the anonymity of the Customer Support mailbox? Or do you want a little of both options? You can let the customer know that the message reached Customer Support successfully and that a real human being is answering it. You must decide which response is best for your organization. . . .


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Reader Comments
I have searched but cannot find this Send As Permission. Could someone please tell me where to find it?<br>
<i>Author response: Aubrey, Send As is a permission that you can see only with Exchange administrative tools. It's not visible in Outlook.</i>

Aubrey Rhame March 21, 2001


To troubleshoot the script, start by checking the Event Log on the server to see if the Event Service is monitoring the folder. If it is, you'll see a log entry. If not, no entry. If the Event Service is encountering any problems, you will see related error messages.

To avoid problems with case sensitivity, you might want to change this line in Listing 1

If CurItem.Type = "IPM.Note" Then

to this

If UCase(CurItem.Type) = "IPM.NOTE" Then

Sue Mosher June 14, 2001


If you're an Outlook 2000 user and
you're having a problem with sent messages moving to the proper Sent Items folder, I suggest the UniSent COM add-in at
http://victori.hypermart.net/unisent.html.

Victor Ivanidze June 18, 2001


This is an awesome article, thanks for the great information!
I'm wondering if there's a way to create an auto-reply message to the group mailbox, rather than creating one in Outlook. If so, how do I do it?<br>
<i>Author response: Michael, the Folder Assistant for a public folder should have a reply action. If not, you'd use an Exchange script or, in Exchange 2000, an event sink.</i>

Michael Prizant August 07, 2001


When I try to publish the form I've created (the first custom form), I get the following error message: "Unable to successfully publish the form due to a MAPI error. The form cannot be installed because you do not have owner permissions." Why do I get this error message? <br>
<i>Author response: eltal, I'd take the message at face value and check the permissions on the folder.</i>

eltal September 07, 2001


When I create this form in Outlook XP or Ooutlook 2000, I can't modify the BCC field because it isn't displayed. In the message, the BCC and FROM fields are displayed, but as soon as I design the form the fields disappear and all that's left are the To, CC, and Subject fields.<br>
<i>Author response: Franc, you don't need to show the Bcc field on the form. You can set the Bcc address on the All Fields tab. Or, run the form, click on the To button and set the Bcc address, then republish the form.</i>


Franc v/d Westelaken October 24, 2001


How do I setup Tasks in the public folders???

Greg Vining November 29, 2001


This article describes the functionality we need in our organisation. Could you tell me what we have to do to make this work in Exchange 2000?<br>
<i>Author response: Onno: Exchange 2000, since it supports event scripts for backwards compatibility, should work the same as Exchange 5.5. However, I haven't tested the technique in that environment.</i>

Onno Meijer February 27, 2002


This is a great idea but I have not been able to accomplish the goal with the instructions provided. The biggest problem I'm having is trying to design the form as described using Outlook 2000. The biggest problem is that when I create a new message, use View -> From: and BCC: to get those fields on the form, then choose Design this form, the BCC: field doesn't appear on the form design screen. And I can't add it to the form after the fact either. Since this is a pretty important step to get the replied message back into the group public folder it's a major stumbling block to success. Any ideas?<br>
<i>Author response: If you need the From or Bcc fields to be visible on the custom form, you can add them in form design from the All Mail Fields list. Remember, too, that users can add a Bcc recipient by clicking the To button.</i>

Jay Scovill April 04, 2002


Thanks for the response. I managed to get the form designed. For some reason it wouldn't let me add the BCC field manually but that was resolved by installing the MS Office SP2 patch (go figure).

However, now I am getting an Event ID 11 Fatal error executing script everytime I send an email to the public folder. I've checked and rechecked the script as given, even cut and pasted so I wouldn't get any typos. As well, the kb article that deals with this doesn't resolve my problem. FYI, I am testing this on Exchange 2000. Perhaps that is my problem in the first place?<br>
<i>Author response: Exchange 2000 requires various extra steps to enable script execution. I have links posted at http://www.slipstick.com/dev/scripting.htm</i>.

Jay Scovill April 08, 2002


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