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Share Folders in Outlook

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

One of the more nifty features of MS Outlook, Net Folders allows an Outlook user to share any of his Outlook folders with other Outlook users. The only prerequisite is that they should be able to send mail to each other. The folder that is to be shared can contain contacts, appointments or even mail for running a mailing list. It’s not a new feature, and has been available since the days of Outlook 98. Another esoteric use would be to create a group calendar and share this with other team members in a bid

to streamline information distribution.

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The Wizard that allows an

Outlook user to share his personal folders with other Outlook users

The set up



For Outlook 2000 users, Net Folders is installed on first use, that is, when this component is used for the first time, Outlook asks for the installation CD. For Outlook 98, you have to install the components separately even when you have installed Outlook. To add the Net Folder component, run through the following steps: 

In the Control Panel, select Add/remove programs, select Microsoft Outlook 98. Click on the Outlook 98 Active Setup/Maintenance Wizard and select Add New Components. The last step would be to select the Net Folder option. 



Another option is to visit the Microsoft Outlook component page, http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/Outlook/addcomp/addcom.htm, which will do an automatic update. 

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When the component has been added, one more thing has to be changed, that is, as the Net Folders component uses RTF format, the “send email only as plain text” option needs to be disabled. 

Using it



We will take Microsoft Outlook as an example for using Net Folders — usage in other versions of Outlook is similar and does not warrant any other extra attention. 

Select any of the folders which you want to share and go to file-share and click on the “this folder” option. A wizard screen will pop up to guide you through the sharing process. It will let you pick up contacts from your contact list, for sending invitations. Once the invitation list has been set up, the permissions can now be set up. Net Folders provide four kinds of permissions - Reviewer, Contributor, Author and Editor in increasing order of access. Once every thing has been configured by the initiator, invitations can be sent. 

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At the receiving end — the Net Folders components should be installed. Once the invitation has been accepted, the wizard asks the user to nominate one of the folders that needs to be synchronized with the folder shared by the initiator.

The other properties, which can be set by the main initiator, include frequency of updates sent, maximum update size. 



Some of the limitations include the inability to use this feature with IMAP mail servers. Also, the Inbox folder cannot be shared as it may create an infinite loop of incoming mails. This feature can also be
useful in scenarios where a common e-mail account needs to be managed.

Ankit Khare

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