•   Introduction
•   Examples of Practical Application
  •   Sharing company mail
  •   Message board - discussion group
  •   Public resource booking
  •   Group schedule
  •   Boss's calendar
  •   Employee availability register
  •   Company contact base
  •   Global company address book
  •   Delegating tasks
  •   Project Management
  •   Share document libraries
•   Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
  •   How to create a new public folder (Outlook 2003/2007)
  •   How to create a new public folder (Outlook 98/2000/XP)
  •   How to share my personal folder with other users
  •   How to open a folder shared by another user
  •   Creating a common company address book
  •   Creating a common inbox and sent items folder
  •   Using the CodeTwo internet demo server and data safety
  •   How to activate the synchronization of read/unread status of messages
  •   Resolving communication problems between client modules and the server
  •   Creating a backup copy and restoring data
  •   Restoring deleted individual data items
  •   Unblocking server module in the system firewall for Windows XP Service Pack 2
  •   Unblocking CodeTwo Public Folders in Norton Internet Security
  •   I have installed the client module but I cannot see the public folders
  •   How to check who created an appointment in a public calendar
  •   When is the data synchronized between the client modules?
  •   Can I have many trees of public folders?
•   Installation Walkthrough
  •   Server module installation
  •   Client module installation
•   Program Settings
  •   Server module settings
  •   C2PublicFolders system service configuration
  •   Client module settings
  •   Adding public folders to the Outlook profile
  •   Removing public folders from the Outlook profile
•   Sharing Public Folders
•   Sharing Personal Folders
  •   Sharing your personal folder with other users
  •   Managing access rights to personal folders
  •   Opening shared personal folders of other users
•   Access Rights Management
•   Offline Mode
•   CodeTwo Public Folders Toolbar
•   Advanced Topics
  •   Resolving Conflicts
  •   Limitations
•   Licensing
•   Comments
•   License Agreement

Creating a common inbox and sent items

User's Manual Start Page

CodeTwo Public Folders does not allow setting the Inbox in the Outlook public folders as the default email delivery folder, but you can define the rule in your inbox to move or copy the messages complying to certain criteria to a selected public folder. You can also define several rules in order to transfer messages to various public folders, depending on which criteria they meet. In that case the selected or all messages can be automatically copied to a selected public folders.

The example below shows how to configure Outlook rules to transfer the received and sent messages to the specific public folders. In this example, we assume that the structure of the public folders looks like on Fig.1. We want all incoming messages sent to "orders@codetwo.com" to be transferred to the "Orders" folder and all incoming messages sent to "supports@codetwo.com" to be moved to the "technical support" folder. Additionally, all messages sent by us via the account named "yahoo.com" should be copied to the public folder called "Common outbox". For this, three rules must be configured in Outlook. Two of them should move the incoming messages to the "Orders" or the "Technical support" folder, depending on the address, to which the message has been sent. The third rule should move the messages sent from the "yahoo.com" account to the "Common outbox" folder.

Fig.1. The public folders structure.

Rule 1: Moving the incoming messages to the "Orders" folder

1.	Go to the Inbox folder and in the Outlook menu select Tools | Rules and Alerts.
2.	Click the New rule button.
3.	Select the Start from a blank rule option, then select the Check messages when they arrive option and click Next (Fig.2).
Fig.2 Creating a new rule for incoming messages.
4.	Check the Sent to people or distribution list option and click the people or distribution list link in the bottom window (Fig.3).
Fig.3 Choosing the addresses of recipients in a rule.
5.	The address book, from which addresses of message recipients should be selected will be displayed. In our case, in the To field we must enter the "orders@codetwo.com" address and click OK.
6.	Click the Next button and in the next window choose the move it to the specified folder option.
7.	In the bottom window click the specified folder link and in the folder browser indicate the public folder, to which the incoming messages will be moved. In this example, it's the Orders folder (a sub-folder of the Common inbox folder) (Fig.4). Click OK.
Fig.4 Choosing the public folder, to which the messages will be moved.
8.	Click the Next button to go to the dialog window of exceptions. Here you may define the exceptions, to which the rule will not be applied.
9.	Click the Next button. The Summary dialog, in which you can also enter the name of the rule, will be displayed. In this example, the rule will be called Incoming orders.
10.	In order to save the entered rule, click the Finish button and then click OK.

Rule 2: Transferring the incoming messages to the "Technical support" folder

In order to create the rule for moving the incoming messages sent to supports@codetwo.com to the "Technical support" folder, you need to configure the rule the same way as described above. The only difference is that in point 5 the address will be "orders@codetwo.com" and in point 7 the "Technical support" folder should be selected. In point 9 enter the name of the rule, e.g. "Technical support questions".


Rule 3: Transferring the outgoing messages to the "Common outbox" folder

1.	Go to the Inbox folder and in the Outlook menu select Tools | Rules and Alerts
2.	Click the New rule button.
3.	Select the Start from a blank rule option, then select the Checking messages after sending option and click the Next button.
4.	Check the through the specified account option and click the specified link in the bottom window. A new dialog window, in which the email account named "yahoo.com" should be selected, will be displayed (Fig.5). Click OK and then click the Next button.
Fig.5 Selecting an email account used to send messages.
5.	Choose the move a copy to the specified folder option and in the bottom window click the specified link. In the folder browser indicate the public folder, to which the outgoing messages will be moved. In this example it's the Common outbox folder (Fig.6). Click OK.
Fig.6 Selecting a public folder to which messages will be moved.
6.	Click the Next button to go to the dialog window of exceptions. There you may define the exceptions, to which the rule will not be applied.
7.	Click the Next button. The Summary dialog window will be displayed, where you can enter the name of the rule will be displayed. In this example, the rule will be called Messages sent through the account yahoo.com.
8.	In order to save the entered rule, click Finish and then OK.

After defining the above three rules, the Rules and Alerts window should look like on Fig.7. Thanks to these rules, the user's email messages will be automatically transferred to the public folders and will be visible to other users.

Fig.7 The rules for transferring the incoming and outgoing messages to the public folders.

If a lot of public folders users use the same POP3 account to receive messages, each of them should set up the same rules on his computer. This way all mail from that account will be made available to other co-workers. At the same time, users should check if none of them has selected the Leave a copy of messages on the server option in their POP3 account settings, because duplicate messages, sent by the rules configured on computers of different users will appear in the public folders.

In order to quickly configure the same Outlook rules on many computers, first they must be configured on one computer and exported to a RWZ file. For this, in the Rules and Alerts dialog click the Options button and then Export Rules. Now the rules can be exported to other computers by selecting the Rules and Alerts dialog, the Options button and Import Rules (Fig.8).

Fig.8 Exporting and importing rules in Outlook.

Synchronization of read/unread status of messages can prove to be a very useful functionality if you share email messages. More...