Outlook and Exchange 2007 timeline Introduction

Microsoft has redesigned the calendar and schedule features of Exchange Server 2007 and Outlook 2007 to make it more efficient, practical, and user-friendly. In this article, I'll discuss these new features and how they improve the functionality of meeting collaboration and schedule collaboration.

Resource mailboxes

In earlier versions of Exchange Server, mailboxes that were created are usually used only as repositories of scheduling resources, such as scheduling meeting rooms or various devices. When scheduling a meeting, the user sends the invitation to a private mailbox as if he were sending an invitation to a colleague. In this way, they can book the appropriate resources for the mailbox. This feature has been improved in Exchange 2007.

When you create a mailbox in Exchange 2007, the new Mailbox Wizard asks you if you want to create a user's mailbox, a conference room mailbox, or a device mailbox. You can see a screenshot of the new Mailbox Wizard as shown in Figure A.

Figure A:exchange Server 2007 is the first Exchange version that distinguishes between user mailboxes and resource mailboxes

The fact that Exchange Server 2007 distinguishes between user mailboxes and resource mailboxes does not seem like a big deal, but it has two obvious advantages:

You can associate the properties of a resource with a mailbox. For example, when you create a conference room mailbox, you can specify the number of seats that can be accommodated in the conference room as a property of that mailbox.

Microsoft Outlook also distinguishes between mailbox types. As shown in Figure B, you see a screenshot of the Outlook Web Access (OWA) meeting request. The resource field on the screen (resources field) is any device that you need to select the conference room and meeting you want to use. When you add a conference room mailbox to a meeting request, OWA fills in the Location field (Location field) automatically.

Figure B:owa allows you to reserve resources as part of a meeting request

Working hours

Meeting time is really about everyone, and Outlook did a really good job of meeting time recommendations. Microsoft Outlook 2007 allows users to enter their daily work hours, so the schedule feature makes it possible to propose more realistic meeting times, thereby improving the scheduling function.

Users can enter their working hours through Microsoft Outlook or OWA. In OWA, the user simply clicks the Calendar button behind the options. As shown in Figure C below. Next, users can select their work date and the time when the shift starts and ends.

Figure C: Users can enter their daily working schedule