Manage Outlook 2007 through Group Policies - Part 3

Manage Outlook 2007 through Group Policies - Part 3 Picture 1 Manage Outlook 2007 through Group Policies - Part 1
Manage Outlook 2007 through Group Policies - Part 3 Picture 2 Manage Outlook 2007 through Group Policies - Part 2

Exchange Server 2007 with Outlook 2007 clearly increased user experience significantly when creating a profile via the Autodiscover feature. When a company has the appropriate credentials and web services are properly designed, the new user only needs to click on the Outlook 2007 icon and his or her data (name and e-mail) will be fill in automatically. All the user needs to do is click on Next and Finish to start using Outlook. The whole process is shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2 below.

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Figure 2

So what happens if we can improve the user experience a bit more? If instead click on the Outlook, Next and Finish icons, we can change the process to simply click on Outlook and start using it immediately. Would that be much more interesting to you? To get there, use Group Policies and follow the steps below:

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Figure 3

Now, in the workstation, where the user has received Group Policy, we can log in as a new user and ensure that the user has an active mailbox on Exchange Server. Then double-click the Outlook 2007 icon, which is the most basic. Users will now be able to access his or her mailbox without any other requests.

By default, Outlook will approve whether Windows Desktop Search 3.0 (or a new version) is installed. If not prompted, it will automatically display. If your organization is not inclined to install it at this point (or at least you want to avoid giving this user a decision during the first run of Outlook), we can use Group Policy. Follow the steps below to avoid this initial reminder:

Outlook's Auto Archive settings

After having installed Outlook for the first time, the user will receive a notification about AutoArchive. The AutoArchive settings are configured by default, to run every 14 days and to notify the user when it runs. To configure AutoArchive's default settings, click Tools , Options , Other tabs and click the AutoArchive button. Figure 4 shows what appears next.

Note: Users can right-click on any folder, click Properties and the tab named AutoArchive will be displayed. Another Autoarchive configuration can be done at the directory level.

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Figure 4

To manage aspects related to previous AutoArchive settings (such as setting Archive or delete old items, Show archive folder in list folder , .) we can use the AutoArchive Settings section, you have This item can be found in the following Group Policy path: Open Tools / Options , open the Other section, click AutoArchive and double-click the AutoArchive Settings item as shown in Figure 5. We can also use the same steps to disable Enable AutoArchive by clicking Disable .

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Figure 5

If you are using another Archiving solution, then you should disable AutoArchive to avoid any conflicts or loss of information that may affect your current solution. To disable users who automatically use AutoArchive, we can double-click Disable File | Archive and users will not be able to use items from the File menu, as shown in Figure 6.

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Figure 6

If we disable the AutoArchive feature, this option will not appear in the Other tab on the Outlook options, as shown in Figure 7.

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Figure 7

Manage user capabilities to adjust permissions on Outlook folders

By default in Outlook 2007, any user can right-click on any folder in its Mailbox and define user privileges on the Global Address List - Global Address List. However, we can change this default behavior using Group Policy, which can be found with this next link:

After using Group Policy on the client, users can click on the folder's Properties and go to Permissions tab. Here, they will receive an error message and the Permissions tab will appear as before but cannot change any values, as shown in Figure 8.

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Figure 8

Note: This Group Policy does not allow changes to existing privileges

Outlook balloon pictures and Desktop Alert alert configuration

These are still used, but there are some companies that want to define some default behavior for Outlook comment boxes and configure Desktop alerts.

Outlook's comment boxes indicate certain messages to users when a connection to the Exchange Server is lost or if the client is having RPC delays when communicating with exchange server. That can tell us the connection problems. Some companies have remote offices and narrow bandwidths between these locations and Exchange servers. These comment boxes can reduce the number of calls that require user support. By using Group Policy, we can manage the comment boxes to increase the time to display information. Here are two options we can set the comment box for the client:

Note: Changes should be carefully documented and remember when you troubleshoot problems with Outlook performance in machines affected by this Group Policy.

The second component of this section is the desktop alert, which displays a new message to the user's mailbox. We can manage aspects of this warning, such as the current alert period (fade, mouse effect, etc.), opacity (if we want to enable or disable turn it). To change these settings, use the steps below. In the example, we disable this warning in the current Group Policy as follows:

Using the previous setting, any new mail sent to the mailbox of the user affected by Group Policy will not be displayed through this warning feature.

Conclude

In the last part of this series on Group Policy and Outlook 2007, we showed you how to configure automatic profiles for Outlook, Auto Archive settings, and how to disable privileges on Outlook and devices. set up Desktop Alert.