Calendar

[pikk]

Hi All

I would like to be able to setup my Exchange 5.5 server to respond to meeting requests for resources that I have created (as mailboxes). To try and explain...when someone in our organization sets up a meeting thru Outlook and needs a resource (in this case, a Boardroom)they will select attendees and also the resource as a required participant. The problem is that unless I have a machine running a copy of Outlook and using the mailbox, Boardroom then if it is unavailable or booked...it cannot reply to the meeting organizer. Am I making sense here? What I did for one of our resources was create a new Outlook install on a "dummy system" so that it could react to meetings. I don't think I need to do this though. If I had 25 resources...I'd have to have 25 machines running just to respond.

Any help would be great!

TIA,
Pikk

 

[Richardo]

You need to set the boardroom mailbox as a resource: load outlook as the boardroom, go to tools-options and press the calendar options button, then the resource scheduling button, then tick at least the first of the three 'automatic' options (I always tick the first two.) There is also a permissions button if you want to specify who can book the resource and who can see whats been booked. You can now close this mailbox and leave it alone.

Once thats all done, if you set up a calendar appointment make sure you invite the resouce into the resource list (rather than as a required or optional attendee.)

This should do the trick. If you get users moaning that they can only see between 1 and 2 months of future bookings on the resouce you will need to set outlook to publish 12 months of free/busy information every 1 minute, then set outlook to open the resouce mailbox, then load outlook with the /cleanfreebusy switch. If you leave outlook for a couple of minutes and then close it the resouce should now display a full year of future information. Over the months this will slowly decrease back to 1 or 2 months.

I used to open all the resouces with the cleanfreebusy switch every month but I've got over 100 now so I only do it every quarter (ish).

Hope this helps

Richard

 

[pikk]

Hi Richard

Thanks for the info. However, I have done this already and the problem is that once I close the resources mailbox...it no longer responds to any requests. I tested this by creating a resource mailbox for our projector resource and leaving it running on a separate machine. This one works fine but as soon as I close this mailbox for the projector...it too stops responding. Could this be an Exchange bug? What are your thoughts?

Pikk

 

[MitchCumstein]

Are you using Outlook 2000? Richardo's method won't work with earlier versions.

If you have to use an earlier version, then you need to use scripts. Lotsa of info can be found at

http://www.slipstick.com/calendar/skedresource.htm

 

[pikk]

Hi Mitch

Yes, we use 2000.

Thnx

P'

 

[MitchCumstein]

Hmmm, then it should work. Try again and follow the instructions found here:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...l/exchange/maintain/featusability/cfsetup.asp

 

[pikk]

I'll give it a shot Mitch.

thnx again!

P