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A full-featured personal calendar, task manager, and group scheduler in its own right, Microsoft Outlook has been incorporated into Microsoft Exchange Server to provide a fully extensible system that can act as a rich foundation for business-specific, activity-management applications. It takes full advantage of the advanced client/server architecture and centralized management features in Microsoft Exchange Server.
Microsoft Outlook is a tool for scheduling group meetings, rooms, and resources. To schedule a meeting, users can overlay the busy times of all the attendees in a single calendar to automatically schedule a meeting, conference room, and any other resources required. The Microsoft Outlook contact-management features provide users with easy access to the names and phone numbers that are part of their daily work.
Public folders make it easy for users to access information on a related topic all in one place. Documents can be stored in public folders for easy access by users inside and outside an organization. These folders are easy to set up without programming; relevant documents can be dragged into the folder. Microsoft Exchange Server uses these public folders as containers for groupware and custom applications.
Support for bulletin boards enables organizations to easily share information throughout the enterprise. Information is organized so that users can easily find what they need, leave messages, and communicate about the topic.
It is interesting to note that Internet users have been working with bulletin boards for many years using Usenet Newsgroups. Microsoft Exchange Server uses the same Internet Standard, called NNTP. Sample bulletin board folders, which are easily customizable, are included with Microsoft Exchange Server.
Electronic forms are easy to create and modify in Outlook so users can send and receive structured information. Traditionally advanced features such as drop-down lists and validation formulas are easy to get at and use. More sophisticated capabilities are accessible from Outlooks rich programming extensibility interfaces. In addition, Outlook forms are automatically rendered to the Web so any user can get to them.
One of the key strengths of Microsoft Exchange Server is its ability to distribute and synchronize shared information through the Microsoft Exchange Server replication system. It is possible to have multiple synchronized copies of folders in different locations regardless of whether users are connected over a LAN or WAN, or the Internet or X.400 backbone.
Replicating information in this way means that synchronized copies of a public folder can reside on multiple servers, distributing the processing load and improving response time for users accessing information within the folder. It also means synchronized copies of a public folder can reside at several geographically separated sites, significantly reducing the amount of long-distance WAN traffic necessary to access information. If a server holding one copy of a public folder becomes unavailable, other servers holding synchronized copies of the same folder can be accessed transparently, greatly increasing the availability of information for users and resulting in a highly reliable system.
Microsoft Exchange Server offers users the unique benefit of location-independent access to shared information. With replication, the physical location of folders is irrelevant to users, and Microsoft Exchange Server hides the sophistication of public folder replication. Users need not be aware of where replicated folders are located, the number of replicated copies, or even that replication occurs at all. They simply find information more easily than ever before.
With the Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service users can replicate public folders and groupware applications throughout a distributed organization, even if they do not have a wide area network. Managing public folder replication is very easy. Using the graphical Microsoft Exchange Server Administrator program, system managers need only select the servers that will receive replicas of the public folders.
Microsoft Exchange Server allows users to automatically perform two-way synchronization between a server folder and a copy of that folder on a local PC. For example, a user can create an offline folder a snapshot or replica of a customer-tracking application to take on a business trip and update it based on interactions with customers during the trip. Then, when the user reconnects to the server either remotely by modem or by connecting to the LAN upon returning to the office the folders can be bidirectionally synchronized with the server. Changes, including forms and views, made on the local machine are updated to the server, and changes to the server-based folders automatically show up on the users PC. Offline folder synchronization lets users maintain up-to-date information without having to be continuously connected to the network.
Creating an offline folder is different from simply copying a server folder to the hard disk, because an offline folder remembers its relationship with the server folder and uses that relationship to perform the bidirectional update. Only changes not the whole folder are copied, which helps minimize network traffic.
Microsoft Exchange Server supports multiple simultaneous offline folder synchronization sessions from many different locations. Built-in conflict resolution for public folders ensures that all the changes are added. The owner of the folder is notified if there is a conflict and can choose which version to keep. With the powerful server-to-server replication technology in Microsoft Exchange Server, this information can then be automatically replicated to users of your system around the world.
Microsoft Exchange Server delivers a scalable set of tools that lets almost anyone even users who have never programmed develop custom groupware applications. It also gives professional programmers all the power they need to build advanced business software systems. Microsoft Exchange Server includes these key development features for both users and programmers:
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