Managing Resource Mailboxes in Exchange Server 2007 (Part 1)

Anderson Patricio

In this article, I will show you how to create Resource Mailboxes using Exchange Management Console and Exchange Management Shell, how to transfer the Regular Mailbox to a Resource Mailbox, and finally recognize the difference between a Resource Mailbox and a Regular Mailbox.

Create Resource Mailboxes using the Exchange Management Console

Exchange Server 2007 allows administrators to create objects such as Mailbox , Contacts , Mail User and Distribution Groups . Here are the steps needed to create a resource mailbox object:

1. Open the Exchange Management Console .

2. Expand Recipient Configuration section.

3. Click Mailbox .

4. In the Mailbox section, click New Mailbox .

5. Introduction : We have to select the object type, in Exchange Server 2007 there are four different mailbox types.

• User mailbox : This is a traditional mailbox, the process of creating mailboxes at Exchange Server 2007 is explained in the Managing Mailbox in Exchange Server 2007 article .

• Room mailbox : This is a mailbox that is assigned specifically to Meeting Rooms. The user account associated with it will be disabled in Active Directory.

• Equipment mailbox : This is a device specific mailbox (eg TV, Projector, GPS, etc.). With a Resource mailbox, this type of mailbox will create a disabled user in Active Directory.

• Linked Mailbox : This type of mailbox will be used in multi-forest environments. This specific feature is explained very clearly in the upcoming articles.

In the Introduction window, select Room Mailbox and then click Next to continue (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Select the mailbox type to be created

6. User Type . In this window, we can choose to create a new user or assign an existing user to the new resource mailbox. If we choose to assign it to an existing user, we will have to check if the account already has a mailbox related to it. Click Next to continue.

7. User Information . In this window, we must fill in the user's personal information and select the unit where it was created. Then click Next (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Enter the Resource mailbox user data and select OU.

8. Mailbox Settings . On the Mailbox Settings page, we can define mailbox information like Alias, Mailbox Server and Mailbox Store, where the new resource mailbox will be created. Policies for Mailbox and ActiveSync can also be defined by this step. We can choose the fields to fill in and then click Next to continue. (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Select Server, Storage Group, Mailbox database and
policies during the process of creating mailboxes.

9. New Mailbox . In this window, we will get all the information selected in the previous steps. These parameters will be used by the cmdlet New-Mailbox for creating this resource mailbox object. To create a resource mailbox, click New (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Parameters will be used in creating a new resource mailbox

10. Completion . In this window, we will see the cmdlet New-mailbox and the parameters used in the creation of this new resource mailbox. The difference between a regular mailbox and a resource is the parameter –room or -Equipment in the cmdlet New-Mailbox . We can see –Room at the end of the cmdlet in Figure 5.

Figure 5: The final screen of New Mailbox Wizardb is displayed for
We used the cmdlet in creating a Resource mailbox.

Note :
We can also select the third option named -Share , and use this option to create a mailbox through the Exchange Management Shell. When using the cmdlet new-mailbox –Shared , we create a mailbox with a disabled user account, the purpose of this share parameter is to create a mailbox that is accessed by many other users, a generic mailbox.

Create a Resource mailbox through the Exchange Management Shell

Another way of creating resource mailboxes is to use the Exchange Management Shell. To do this, we can use the cmdlet New-Mailbox . There are many parameters related to this command and the parameters required for the cmdlet are given below:

1. Name
2. UserPrincipalName
3. Database
4. OrganizationalUnit
5. And parameters to choose the type of resource
   1. Room: Room Resource Mailbox
   2. Equipment: Equipment Resource Mailbox
   3. Shared: Shared Resource Mailbox

To create a user using the Exchange Management Shell, we can run the cmdlet according to the instructions below:

New-Mailbox -name -Database -OrganizationalUnit Users –UserPrincipalName Meeting.Room.Name@contoso.local> -

If we don't type all the required parameters, we will be prompted for the missing parameters. With Resource Mailboxes, passwords are not required during the process (shown in Figure 6).

Figure 6: Creating a mailbox through the cmdlet New-Mailbox in the Exchange Management Console

Analyzing Resource mailboxes

The Resource Mailbox has a number of differences with regular mailboxes such as Active Directory, specific attributes and features through OWA, and has a special feature in supporting their scheduling.

In the Active Directory, all Resource Mailboxes are created as disabled accounts (Figure 7). This means that we cannot log on to the network using the resource mailbox user information.

Figure 7: All Resource mailboxes as disabled accounts

OWA under Options, we have a new section called Resource Settings, which is a special section for Resource Mailbox (Figure 8). We will consider this issue in part two of this article.

Figure 8: Resource settings section appears when there is a Resource mailbox

Using OWA or Outlook 2007, we have a Scheduling Assistant feature, which simplifies booking meetings or meetings. This feature suggests the best days and best times for meeting or meeting with color coding interface (Figure 9). In the following example, Assistant shows that all 4 attendees are able to meet at 11:30 and 6 rooms are available for this meeting (because Chicago Room has an appointment at the time of issue. export).

Figure 9: Scheduling Assistant. We can validate free time among participants
and Meeting Rooms with Suggested Times tool.

Another feature is that when adding new mailbox rooms to look at, there is a special list called All Rooms, which allows us to select only Room Mailboxes (Figure 10).

Figure 10: Select Room Mailbox to check availability

Finally, we can see all resource mailboxes via the Exchange Management Shell as shown in Figure 11. The Resource Mailbox has four specific features: IsResource, ResourceType, ResourceCapacity and Custom Resource.

Figure 11: All resource mailboxes and their types using the Exchange Management Shell

Allow users to access the Resource mailbox

After creating and validating the resource mailbox, we can add permission for certain users to control the Resource Mailbox. We can do that by using the cmdlet called Add-MailboxPermission (Figure 12), with the following parameters:

Add-MailboxPermission –Identity -User -AccessRights -InheritanceType

Figure 12: Empowering users to log in to the Resource mailbox

Now, the user specified in the Add-MailboxPermission cmdlet can access the Resource Mailbox. We can do this using the OWA session. Opening OWA with information can access the Resource mailbox, then click on the name of the user who is logged in on the right side of OWA and type in the name of the Resource Mailbox and then click Open (see Figure 13 ).

Figure 13: Accessing the Resource mailbox through OWA

Then, a new window will appear with the OWA session of the specified Resource Mailbox, then we can configure the resource mailbox features for this account.

Transform a mailbox into a Resource mailbox

Let's assume we have created a regular mailbox instead of a resource mailbox. Should you delete and start the process from the beginning? Do not do so because it is unnecessary, we can switch from Regular Mailbox to Resource mailbox and vice versa.

1. Make sure the mailbox (meeting.room.quebec) is not a resource mailbox.
Get-Mailbox | select Name, IsResource

2. Someone created that mailbox as a Regular mailbox, please convert it to a Resource mailbox.
Set-Mailbox-Type Room

3. At this point, validate the situation with the first cmdlet (step 1).

The steps in Figure 14 can be seen where we use the cmdlet to convert a mailbox to a Resource Mailbox.

Figure 14: Converting a mailbox to a Resource mailbox

Conclude

We introduced how to create a resource mailbox using Exchange Management Console or Exchange Management Shell. We also see the differences between a Resource Mailbox in relation to a Regular Mailbox, how to convert from a regular mailbox to a resource mailbox, and to grant rights in resource mailboxes to certain users. In the second part of this series, I will show you how to manage the Resource mailbox.

Managing Resource Mailboxes in Exchange Server 2007 (Part 2)