Sharing data with other users can be a real benefit to productivity. Many of us have team members, colleagues, right-hand men and women needing access to (and whom we very much want to give access to ) our contact manager data.

Can we do it? Absolutely.

Recently we wrote an article on how to share Microsoft Outlook Contacts with other users . Visit that article to understand how to share Contacts in Outlook.

This article focuses on the other types of Folders residing in the Outlook directory structure. They are

• Calendar
• Inbox
• Notes
• Tasks
• etc…

Sharing these folders requires two major steps (with little ones in between)

The MAJOR STEPS are:

1. Share the Mailbox and folders of the source user
2. Change the Mailbox settings of the recipient user and Add the resources from the source user

The minor steps can be fit inside each of the MAJOR ones.

Requirement: sharing contact information in Outlook requires the use of Microsoft Exchange Server.

Here we go:

STEP 1: Sharing Outlook Folders with others – (sharing the source)

You can share Calendar, Email/Inbox, Journal, Notes, Tasks and other folders with users in your Exchange organization. Sharing these folders in Outlook is very similar to sharing folders in the Windows file system with one glaring exception. YOU MUST SHARE THE FOLDERS ABOVE THE TARGET FOLDER YOU INTEND TO SHARE.

As an example, if you had an email subfolder for your online bills, then each folder above your online bills would have to be shared also (using Microsoft Outlook permissions) to allow access to the folder further down the tree.

• Mailbox (shared)
  • Inbox (shared)
    • my online bills (target Share)

EXAMPLE: Share a Folder in Microsoft Outlook

• Open Microsoft Outlook
• Change to Folder view
• Right click on the Mailbox – Your Username folder and select Properties for Your Username
• select the Permissions [tab]
• click the Add button
• from the Add Users windows, highlight he user you want to share your data with, click Add and click OK
• now back at the Permissions [tab], highlight the user you just added and set their Permission Level using the drop down menu to Reviewer
• Now you can proceed to share folders within Microsoft Outlook

To Share Folders in the Shared Mailbox – Your Username (using Inbox as an example)

• Open Microsoft Outlook
  
• Change to Folder view
• Right click on the Inbox folder and select Properties
• select the Permissions [tab]
• click the Add button
• from the Add Users windows, highlight the user you want to share your Inbox with, click Add and click OK
• now back at the Permissions [tab], highlight the user you just added to the Inbox and set their Permission Level using the drop down menu to the level you want to grant that user.
• Permission Level(s) are
  • Owner
  • Publishing Editor
  • Editor
  • Publishing Author
  • Author
  • Nonediting Author
  • Reviewer
  • Contributor
  • None

You can follow this principal with each type of folder and at each level, sub-folder, etc.. (not just the Inbox). So, as you want to share your Calendar, Email/Inbox, Journal, Notes, and Tasks just repeat the procedure above.

A reminder about SubFolders (as in the my online bills example above) be sure to share each folder above the target folder with at least Reviewer permissions. This is required so that the target folder is accessible. Then set the higher share permission on the target folder itself.

Granting higher permissions at the subfolder level does not propagate upward to parent folders. So if you grant Publishing Author to another user for an email subfolder (below the Inbox), they will be Publishing Author at the subfolder only. They DO NOT have the same permission at the Mailbox OR Inbox level, only on the subfolder level. The Mailbox and Inbox will remain at Reviewer (if that’s what you set) just as in previous steps.

STEP 2: Sharing Outlook Folders with others – (setup the recipient to access the share)

Now that the folders have been shared, we must setup the recipient users Outlook to access the shared folders.

• open Microsoft Outlook
• on the Tools menu, select Account Settings
• highlight the Microsoft Exchange based email account, and click Change
• on the lower right, click More Settings
• select the Advanced [tab]
• in the Mailboxes outline, click the Add [button]
• type the username of the Exchange user from which the folder(s) were shared
• click Next, click Finish
• close Outlook and then re-open Outlook
• the folders should appear on a separate node in your folder tree

That’s it!

If you would like more information about Microsoft Outlook and what it can do in your organization, please contact WIGITAL. We install, configure and optimize Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Mobile devices for networks both small and large. Call us or email us through our website.

FURTHER READING

• Share and open other people’s folders