10. Creating public folder mailboxes
Public folders are used to share messages and files in an
organization. Public folder trees define the structure of an
organization’s public folders. You can make the default public folder
tree accessible to users based on criteria you set, and then users can
create folders and manage their content.
Each public folder in the default public folder tree can have
specific access permissions. For example, you can create public folders
called CompanyWide, Marketing, and Engineering. Whereas you would
typically make the CompanyWide folder accessible to all users, you
would make the Marketing folder accessible only to users in the
marketing department and the Engineering folder accessible only to
users in the engineering department.
Users access public folders from Outlook clients, including Outlook
Web App and Outlook 2007 or later. With Outlook Web App and Outlook
2007 or later, users can add and remove favorite public folders and
perform item-level operations, such as creating and managing posts.
However, users can create or delete public folders only from Outlook
2007 or later. As an administrator, you can manage public folders in
Exchange Admin Center.
Beginning with Exchange 2013, Exchange servers no longer use public
folder databases or store public folder data separately from mailbox
data. Instead, Exchange 2013 and Exchange Online store public folder
data in mailboxes. This significant architecture change greatly
simplifies public folder management.
In Exchange Admin Center, you work with public folders by selecting
Public Folders in the feature pane and then selecting either Public
Folder Mailboxes or Public Folders as appropriate. You use the options
under Public Folder Mailboxes to create and manage the mailboxes that
store public folder data. You use the options under Public Folders to
view and manage the public folder hierarchy.
An Exchange organization can have one or more public folder
mailboxes and those mailboxes can be created on one or more Mailbox
servers throughout the organization. While each public folder mailbox
can contain public folder content, only the first public folder mailbox
created in an Exchange organization contains the writable copy of the
public folder hierarchy. This mailbox is referred to as the hierarchy
mailbox. Any additional public folder mailboxes contain read-only
copies of the public-folder hierarchy.
Because there’s only one writeable copy of the public folder
hierarchy, proxying is used to relay folder changes to the hierarchy
mailbox. This means that any time users working with folders in an
additional mailbox create new subfolders, the folder creation,
modification, or removal is proxied to the hierarchy mailbox by the
content mailbox users are connected to.
In Exchange Admin Center, you can create a public folder mailbox by following these steps:
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Select Public Folders in the feature pane and then select Public Folder Mailboxes.
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Tap or click New. This opens the New Public Folder Mailbox dialog box.
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Type a descriptive name for the mailbox.
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With on-premises Exchange, you can associate the mailbox with a
specific organizational unit. Tap or click Browse to the right of the
Organizational Unit text box. Use the Select Organizational Unit dialog
box to choose the location in which to store the account, and then tap
or click OK. A user account for the mailbox is created in the selected
organizational unit (with the account disabled for login).
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With on-premises Exchange, you can specify a mailbox database rather
than use an automatically selected one. Tap or click Browse to the
right of the Mailbox Database text box. In the Select Mailbox Database
dialog box, choose the mailbox database in which the mailbox should be
stored, and then tap or click OK.
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Tap or click Save to create the public folder mailbox. If an error
occurs during account or mailbox creation, neither the account nor the
related mailbox will be created. You need to correct the problem before
you can complete this procedure.
Public folder content can include email messages, documents, and
more. The content is stored in the public folder mailbox but isn’t
replicated across multiple public folder mailboxes. Instead, all users
access the same public folder mailbox for the same set of content.
When you create the
first public folder in the organization, you establish the root of the
public folder hierarchy. You can then create subfolders and assign
access permissions on folders. In Exchange Admin Center, select Public
Folders in the feature pane and then select Public Folders. Use the
available options to create subfolders and set permissions on those
folders.
When you create public folder mailboxes, they inherit the quota
limits of the mailbox database in which they are stored. You can modify
the quota limits using the properties dialog for the mailbox.
Double-tap or double-click the mailbox entry. In the Public Folder
Mailbox dialog box, on the Mailbox Usage page, tap or click More
Options and then select Customize The Settings For This Mailbox. Next,
use the selection lists provided to specify when warnings are issued,
what posts are prohibited, and the maximum size of items. Apply the
changes by tapping or clicking Save.
When users are connected to public folder mailboxes and
make routine changes to an Exchange store hierarchy or content, the
changes are synchronized every 15 minutes using Incremental Change
Synchronization (ICS). Immediate syncing is used for non-routine
changes, such as folder creation. If no users are connected to public
folder mailboxes, synchronization occurs once every 24 hours by default.
