Question:
Do you know of any way to use offline folders by default but to have your calendar work online? (I am using Outlook 2000.) I want to work offline but have my calendar on a server for access by my personal assistant.
Answer:
What you need to do is configure Outlook for offline use. When you do that you’ll have an Exchange mailbox that is your “primary” data store, but it will synchronize to a local .OST file on your C drive. Outlook and Exchange will resynchronize each time you connect to the Exchange server.
Make certain that you have the Exchange Server Service installed in Outlook and that on the Advanced Tab of the Exchange Server Service properties you have “Enable Offline Use” checked. You can then go into the Offline Folder Settings and configure an offline folder file.
Your assistant can access the Calendar that is in your mailbox on the Exchange server.
One word of caution, though… If both you and your assistant are active users, you’ll want to connect and synchronize often; otherwise you’ll have appointments on your calendar that your assistant won’t see and your assistant will have appointments on the calendar that you won’t see. The potential for inadvertent scheduling conflicts is thus pretty great if you only synchronize sporadically.
Also, you’ll only receive e-mail when you connect to Exchange and synchronize.
