Managing Communications on Your Intranet

Microsoft Outlook 2000 is a desktop information manager that organizes e-mail messages, calendars, contacts, tasks, documents, and files into a single, integrated environment. Outlook 2000 also helps users share information through Microsoft Exchange Server public folders, electronic forms, groupware, and the Internet.

Using electronic mail options

Outlook 2000 makes it easy for users in your organization to communicate internally or externally by using Exchange Server, Microsoft Mail, or other third-party mail systems. Support for Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3), Internet Mail Access Protocol version 4 (IMAP4), and Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) in Outlook 2000 allows users to communicate directly over the Internet.

In addition, Outlook 2000 automatically creates hyperlinks for any URL contained in an e-mail message or any other Outlook 2000 item. Using Mail Recipient command (File menu, Send To submenu), you can send the following Office 2000 files as HTML-based e-mail messages:

• Microsoft Word 2000 documents
• Microsoft Excel 2000 worksheets
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 slides
• Microsoft Access 2000 data pages

Scheduling meetings

Group scheduling with Exchange Server helps users schedule meetings and keep in touch with other members of their organization. In addition, Outlook 2000 includes the ability to perform group scheduling over the Internet. Users can publish and download free/busy information for scheduling meetings, as well as send and receive meeting requests and responses over the Internet by using the iCalendar Internet standard.

Sharing information in public folders

By using Outlook 2000 and Exchange Server, you can share information with other people in your organization. For example, you can publish in a public folder such items as:

• Calendars that identify holidays, trade shows, and so on.
• Contact lists.
• Project task lists.

Or you can create an online conversation to track ideas about a new project. Administrators can create custom views of the message, task, contact, schedule, or journal items in a public folder, and then each user can create personalized views of this shared information.

Toolbox   The Microsoft Office Resource Kit for Office 97/98 provides additional information about using public folders. See the Office 97 Resource Kit Documentation for more information.

Developing solutions for collaborating over the Internet

Outlook 2000 takes the Internet beyond just Web pages and electronic mail and provides new ways for you to collaborate and share information across the Internet. For workgroups and enterprises, Outlook 2000, combined with Microsoft Exchange Server, is a complete solution for developing and deploying a wide variety of collaborative applications, from contact management solutions for workgroups to enterprise-wide workflow and tracking applications.