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Exchange 2007 was the first release of Exchange to include Unified Messaging (UM) and this was the first time many of our customers started considering replacing their existing voice mail systems with UM. As with any new technology, many have sent in questions or concerns regarding the legal implications of UM, and how to control the voice mail messages once they're inside Exchange. If you aren't familiar with Exchange UM and the benefits it provides to both end-users and IT professions, please check out more information here: http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/unifiedmessaging/default.mspx . However, some companies have been hesitant to store voice mail and e-mail in the same system, fearing that it will create increased legal risk by making voice mails more "discoverable" or somehow less manageable. We got this initial feedback during our TAP and beta trials of Exchange, so we worked with the law firm of Covington & Burling LLP. They studied this problem and created a white paper to summarize their findings. If you read through the white paper, you'll notice two things. First, the white paper concludes ".that no aspect of Exchange alters, by increasing or decreasing, the record retention obligations of these organizations in the U.S. or E.U. ." That is, if a company is obligated to retain voice mail messages, it doesn't matter if they're stored in Exchange 2007 UM or somewhere else - they still need to be retained. Likewise, if voice mail messages have been deleted in the normal course of business prior to an obligation to retain them, the fact they were in Exchange 2007 UM doesn't create a new obligation to retain where no obligation existed before. Secondly, the white paper notes that Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging offers significant advantages for a company that may need to retain and produce voice mails. Features that were considered especially helpful included being able to visit a single system to access, query, and produce both voice mail and e-mail; and having a single repository (rather than multiple repositories) to apply retention policies. The complete white paper is available here if you're interested: http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/unifiedmessaging/dataretentionwp.mspx There are additional benefits that Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging provides for companies seeking to reduce cost and increase flexibility in addressing e-discovery requirements. They fall into two categories:

1. Ensuring that voice mails are not retained beyond policy during the normal course of business.
2. Being able to quickly and easily retain voice mails to meet preservation obligations in the face of impending litigation.

For a good overview of our compliance features if you're not already familiar with them, check out the Exchanger Server 2007 Compliance Tour here: http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/compliance/compliance-tour.mspx Ensuring that voice mails are not retained beyond policy during the normal course of business: To meet this first category of requirements, you can implement a transport rule and modify some settings to easily control how you retain voice mail.

1. Use a Managed Default Folders setting to automatically expire voice mails after X days. Also note that these policies can be applied differently at the user- or group-level, as well as for the entire organization.
2. Use Transport Rules to prevent voice mail being from being forwarded outside the organization, based on attributes Exchange automatically adds to a voice mail message:

1. Use Journaling settings to ensure that voice mail is not journaled to any external system. Additionally, in case you didn't know, Exchange does not journal voice mail by default. To change this setting or verify your existing settings, an administrators can use Set-TransportConfig or Get-TransportConfig cmdlets described here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb201690(EXCHG.80).aspx
2. Use Exchange ActiveSync settings to prevent voice mails from being forwarded to Mobile devices. This policy is somewhat draconian, as it prevents all attachments from being forwarded to mobile devices, not just .wma files.
3. Customize the voice mail message template to remind users of the company policy about voice mail retention. Administrators can create a message of up to 512 characters that appears on every voice mail message using Set-UMMailboxpolicy -VoiceMailText, described here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124903(EXCHG.80).aspx

Ensuring that voicemails are retained to meet preservation obligations in the face of impending litigation: Once you have Exchange retaining voice mail to be consistent with organizational policies, you may need to change that based on impending litigation.

1. Instantly implement a retention hold on an effected user's mailbox, using either the Set-Mailbox cmdlet or the EMC. The retention hold can be indefinite, or have a set start and end date. This command can also be combined with the Get-Mailbox cmdlet, allowing you to easily select an OU, etc.
2. Easily transcribe voice mails, by providing a text field right next to the "play" controls on the voice mail message where the end user can make notes. These transcribed notes are searchable with Exchange's full-text search engine, allowing the message to be quickly retrieved later.
3. Assist users in the process of identifying relevant information by providing a litigation-specific Managed Custom Folder. This could automatically create a folder in the end user's Mailbox, with a name like "Contoso Litigation" and a descriptive label, such as "Please store any and all email, voice mail, and faxes related to Contoso Litigation in this folder"
4. Easily export voice mails to another mailbox for review using the Export-Mailbox cmdlet with the -Subject "Voice Mail" parameter. This allows Exchange administrators to create separate accounts for the purpose of reviewing voice mails, while leaving the original messages in place.

In Summary: Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging does not change a company's obligation to retain voice mail. However, by using Exchange UM, organizations will find it easier to control voice mail. It will also be easier to implement a retention policy that applies to e-mail, voice mail, and fax messages. Should it become necessary to prepare for litigation, Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging reduces the cost of accessing, querying, and producing voice mail. - Chris Chalmers TECHNOLOGY SPECIALIST

SYNCING.NET for Outlook is a full featured solution for synchronization of Microsoft Outlook data between multiple computers. All data is transmitted directly between the computers via LAN/WLAN and/or the internet (peer-to-peer). Once selected, the Outlook data is synchronized completely automatically. Users don't need to do anything more and can work with Outlook as usual. Any changes to Outlook items are transferred immediately to all members of the sync network.

People often ask how to copy Outlook signatures between multiple computers. In this post, I’ll describe how to accomplish that task using a little known keyboard shortcut. 1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and select the Mail Format tab 2. Hold down <ctrl> key while clicking the Signatures… button 3. The folder containing your signatures will open 4. Copy all of the files and folders in the Signatures folder to the location where you back up your files (e.g. flash drive, external hard drive, another computer) 5. Now open the Signatures folder on your other computer by repeating the first three steps and then copy the files you just backed up to that folder 6. The next time you use Outlook on the other computer, your signatures will show up in the E-mail Signatures tab of the Signatures and Stationery dialog box and on the Insert tab in the inspector 7. If you’d like any of those signatures to be automatically applied to new messages or replies/forwards when using the other computer, open the E-mail Signatures tab of the Signatures and Stationery dialog box to configure a default signature for either type of message Ellen Adams, Microsoft Office Outlook Program Manager `·.¸¸ ><((((º>.·´¯`·><((((º> ><((((º> ·...><((((º> ·...><((((º>

ContacTree is a contact organizer add-in for Microsoft Outlook that automatically generates organization charts of a contact's company for easy searching and navigation. Available in versions for personal and enterprise use, ContacTree provides very simple new intuitive input forms with extensive auto-complete functions. By splitting contact data into linked levels of Contact, Contact's Manger, Organization and Location, it also becomes easy to develop and maintain records over time. Personal and Enterprise versions available.

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Delete Duplicates for Outlook is a tool for deleting duplicate e-mails for Microsoft Outlook. Works with Outlook 2000/2002/2003/2007. Version 4.8

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I’m a big fan of reducing the amount of ways that applications can interrupt me with notifications, messages, etc. Since I spend so much time in Outlook and receive an enormous amount of e-mail, I find that turning off all of the notifications for new messages is a great way to ‘quiet down’ Outlook. This includes things like:

• the New Mail Desktop Alert
• the envelope icon that appears in the system tray
• the cursor briefly changing to an envelope
• the ‘ding’ sound that accompanies all of the above

They’re a bit hard to find in our Options dialogs, and that’s something we hope to address in a future release of Outlook. Until then, if you want to eliminate some or all of these notifications, here’s where to find the controls for turning them off: Go to the Tools menu, then choose Options. In the ‘Email’ section at the top of the dialog, click E-mail Options…, then Advanced E-Mail Options in the next dialog.

Still with me? :) Good, since you’ve now found the options:

I like to turn all of them off, but feel free to change them however you would like. You can also edit some of the settings of the New Message Alert pop-up using the Desktop Alert Settings button…

That’s it! I hope you find a quiet Outlook as helpful to your productivity as I do. Michael Affronti Outlook Program Manager

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So you've heard some folks saying large mailboxes are a good idea. Your users have been screaming for mailboxes with more than 1GB quotas. Your management wants you to be able to recover from outages in minutes, not days. Everyone is telling you to do more with less. Well, with Exchange 2007 you can have your cake and eat it too (so long as you plan for it). Have a look at the rules of the game in the new Planning for Large Mailboxes with Exchange 2007 white paper. This white paper covers the benefits of large mailboxes for both the end user and the administrator, the challenges that large mailboxes bring to an organizations infrastructure, and how Exchange 2007's features can help meet those challenges. Yes, >1GB mailboxes can be delivered to your users without breaking the bank. Check it out here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=122250

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Many people use rules to automatically sort messages from various distribution lists into folders in order to keep the volume of email traffic in their inbox to a manageable level. This work for the most part - until someone decides to BCC a list. Since the distribution list isn't visible in the list of recipients, it bypasses all rules and gets dropped in their inbox. This can cause quite a distraction for everyone on that DL because something appeared in their inbox, and it's not quite apparent why they received that message. Mailman and Majordomo have had this problem solved for a while now. It's actually a very simple solution: make sure the name of the mailing list is included in the subject of the email. Then users can set up filters based on words in the subject and they never encounter the problem when someone BCC's the list. Exchange 2007 can do the same thing; it just needs a little help from a custom transport agent. I have written a very basic agent to add the name of the DL into the subject. You can use it as a starting point and add your own features. To install this agent, follow these instructions:

1. Copy ShowDLInSubjectAgent.dll to your transport server. In this example, I place it in C:\MyAgents
2. Open the Exchange Management Shell
3. Type Install-TransportAgent -Name ShowDLInSubjectAgent -TransportAgentFactory ShowDLInSubjectAgent.ShowDLInSubjectFactory -AssemblyPath C:\MyAgents\ShowDLInSubjectAgent.dll
4. Close and restart the Exchange Management Shell.
5. Type Enable-TransportAgent -Identity ShowDLInSubjectAgent
6. Restart the transport service by typing Restart-Service MSExchangeTransport

If all goes well, all emails to a distribution list will now include the name of the DL in the subject of the email. Note: This is a sample transport agent and it is not officially supported by Microsoft. Please see the readme.txt file included in the package for more information. The ZIP file with the binary and the entire source for you to play with is here: ShowDLInSubjectAgent.zip

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When Outlook doesn’t shutdown cleanly, your Outlook Data File (either a .pst or .ost file) can be left in an unverified state that can cause one of the following errors to appear the next time you boot Outlook:

“Outlook cannot open the data file filename until it has been checked for problems.” “Microsoft Office Outlook’ exited without properly closing your Outlook data file ‘drive:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\outlook.ost’. ‘Microsoft Office Outlook’ must be restarted. If this error message recurs, contact support for ‘Microsoft Office Outlook’ for assistance.” “The data file filename was not closed properly’. This file is being checked for problems.”

At this point Outlook needs to perform a reconciliation of the data file, a simple process that ‘cleans up’ the file from an incorrect shutdown. While the verification is happening, you will see a small ‘gear’ icon in the lower-right corner of Outlook:

Again, it’s okay to continue using Outlook as you would normally while this is happening as this reconciliation process happens in the background. When this icon disappears, the .pst file or the .ost file is verified.

If you shutdown Outlook while the gear icon is present, then verification must restart the next time you run Outlook. We recommend that you leave Outlook running until the gear icon disappears before shutting down. An incorrectly shut down Outlook Data File may occur for one of the following reasons:

• Another program that is accessing your Outlook Data File doesn’t exit cleanly
• Antivirus scanning of the file
• Outlook add-ins
• Outlook crashing
• Forced Microsoft Windows shutdown before the Outlook.exe process shuts down completely

If you believe you’re seeing this last issue often and need to shutdown Outlook shortly before shutting down your computer, then it may be better to shut down Windows when the Outlook window is still open instead of shortly afterwards. Michael Affronti Outlook Program Manager

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For some of us, the AutoArchive reminder pops up at regular—and often inconvenient—intervals. For others, we think we’ve got it working, moving our unneeded Outlook items to be stored elsewhere, but we’re still playing it safe with the settings so that we don’t lose anything important. Or if we lose track of where our items are stored, we worry that they’ve been deleted. For the basics of AutoArchiving, see Use AutoArchive to back up or delete items on Office Online. How can we be sure that we set things up so that our unneeded items are safely stored, but that keeping them “out of sight, out of mind” doesn’t also mean “gone forever?” There are a lot of options in the dialog below. For an in-depth explanation of the AutoArchive settings see the “AutoArchive settings explained”article on Office Online.

Take control when customizing your AutoArchive settings If you remember nothing else, remember this: under the umbrella of AutoArchive, archiving and deleting are two separate things. If something is archived, it is not deleted. Archiving only moves items. Here are the details: · AutoArchive moves items from their original location in Outlook to an archive file folder when they expire; that is, when they pass their aging period. It can also automatically delete items instead of archiving them when they expire. The different types of Outlook items have default aging periods that do not change unless you modify the settings for them manually. Translation: Items are moved or deleted on a preset timetable. You can either let Outlook’s default aging periods decide when your items are archived, or you can adjust the settings to suit your needs. For more information, see the aging period tables at the end of this post. · Items are moved to and stored in their archived locations unless you change one or more AutoArchive settings. The items are not deleted from their archived location; they can only be deleted automatically before they are moved to their archive location. Once they are archived, they can only be deleted manually. Translation: Once items are moved, they are never deleted from their archived location, unless you or an administrator do so manually (or if your computer hard drive or mail server crashes and burns) . And items are only deleted before being moved if you set it up that way. For more information, see Where does Outlook move my archived items? in the next section. · Choosing a setting which deletes items deletes the items automatically when they expire. They are not archived (moved). For instance, if you click Delete expired items (e-mail folders only), this option deletes all messages in all your e-mail folders, such as Inbox, Sent, or Drafts, when they reach the end of their aging periods. The messages are not archived. Translation: Items that you choose to be deleted when they expire are not archived (moved). Expire = reaching the end of an aging period. And you can change the aging periods too. Choosing a setting to delete items….deletes them. Where does Outlook move my archived items? The archive file is a special type of data file, an Outlook Date File (or Personal Folders file, .pst). The first time AutoArchive runs, by default Outlook creates the archive file automatically in the following locations:

• Windows Vista C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\Archive.pst
• Microsoft Windows XP C:\Documents and Settings\YourUserName \Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Archive.pst

You can also create your own archive files and storage locations for individual folders, so your storage locations may differ. Note: As a best practice, it’s recommended that you backup your .pst files. Even though they are archived, there is still just one copy of each .pst. Make backups so that you don’t lose your archives in the event of a hard drive or server crash or file corruption. Default aging periods for when items in folders expire or are deleted

Folder	Aging period
Inbox and Drafts	6 months
Sent Items and Deleted Items	1 months
Outbox	3 months
Calendar	6 months
Task	6 months
Notes	6 months
Journal	6 months
Contacts	don't expire

Note: Folders you create that contain the same types of items as Inbox, Calendar, Tasks, Notes, or Journal have the same default, six-month aging period. Determine the age of an item

Item Type	When the aging period starts
E-mail message	The received date/time or when you last changed and saved the message, whichever is later.
Meeting, event, or appointment	The date when you last changed and saved the item.
Task	The completion date or when you last changed and saved the task. Tasks that are not marked complete are not AutoArchived. Tasks assigned to other people are archived only if marked complete.
Note	When you last changed and saved the note.
Journal entry	The date the Journal entry was created or when you last changed and saved the entry.
Contact	Contacts are not archived by default. However, you may manually archive them.

I hope this has helped you feel more confident about taking advantage of the convenience of AutoArchive. If not, let us know what issues you are running into. Now, Outlook users, go forth and AutoArchive! Laurie Hughes Outlook UA writer