Public Folder Good Practises
Public Folders Section Home Page
If you start to make any significant use of public folders, they can quickly get out of control. Follow these best practises for effective public folder management:
- Don't allow users to create top level public folders.
Create a folder tree layout and stick to it.
To adjust permissions to stop users from creating Public Folders in the top level: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328808
- Create folders in Outlook, not Exchange System Manager.
By creating the folders in Outlook you can ensure that they are created in the correct format. If you create folders in ESM then they are only in one format - mail. If you want calendar, contacts or tasks then you need to use Outlook.
- Ensure that you have a group as Owner.
This is related to the best practises for Public Folder Permissions
- Set Default Permissions to NONE.
This is related to the best practises for Public Folder Permissions
- Replicate Public Folders to all Mailbox Servers.
Unless you have a very large Exchange org, or have deployed dedicated Public Folder servers, for most sites it makes sense to replicate all public folders to all servers. While Outlook is supposed to go looking for a public folder that does not exist on the server that houses the mailbox, this is not very reliable.
- Set Permissions on the Top Level Folder before you create subfolders.
Public Folder permissions on propagate automatically when the folder is initially created. Therefore if you change the permissions on a folder above after creation, that change will not propagate down. Use ESM to propagate a permission change to an extensive tree.
- Read Microsoft's Best Practises Guide.
Microsoft have more on Public Folder Best Practises here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998053.aspx