If groups in your organization collaborate by using Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint™ Services sites, a new feature in Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 allows users to share data between the two resources. This allows users to see information stored on Windows SharePoint Services team sites — such as names and phone numbers — by using Outlook folders.

 Note   To learn more about using Outlook with Windows SharePoint Services, see Using Windows SharePoint Services.

You can change Outlook behavior when synchronizing information with group Web sites. Or, you can choose to help prevent users from linking information between Outlook and Windows SharePoint Services sites.

Linking to Windows SharePoint Services from Outlook

Users can use a new button in Windows SharePoint Services Contacts and Events pages — Link to Outlook — to link information to folders that are created in Outlook. Once the link between Outlook and a Windows SharePoint Services site is established and the user has the folder open that is linked to the site, information is refreshed every 20 minutes, by default. Only items that have changed are synchronized to the Outlook client.

Using Group Policy to change synchronization behavior or disable linking

You can use Group Policy to set policies that manage how Outlook and Windows SharePoint Services interact for users in your organization. You can set a policy to specify the time interval between information synchronizations or you can disallow linking altogether.

You can change the synchronization interval to make it longer, if, for example, users are linked from Outlook to a large group of Contacts which would trigger a time-consuming synchronization; or shorter, if users need access to updated information at all times. You can even turn off automatic synchronization. However, regardless of how the synchronization interval setting is configured, linked folders are automatically synchronized when users switch to one of these folders.

To set the synchronization interval for updating Outlook folders

1. In Group Policy, load the Outlook 2003 template (Outlk11.adm).
2. Under User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Microsoft Office Outlook 2003\SharePoint Integration, double-click Sharepoint folder sync interval.
3. Select Enabled to enable configuring the policy.
4. In the Select interval to sync Sharepoint folders: (minutes) box, enter a decimal value (or use the up and down arrows to select a value), then click OK.

Another option is to use a policy to disallow any linking between Outlook and Windows SharePoint Services for your users.

To disable linking between Outlook and Windows SharePoint Services

1. In the Group Policy snap-in, load the Outlook 2003 template (Outlk11.adm).
2. Under User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Microsoft Office Outlook 2003\SharePoint Integration, double-click Disable Sharepoint integration in Outlook.
3. Select Enabled to enable configuring the policy.
4. Select Check to disable Sharepoint integration in Outlook, then click OK.

 Note    To link Outlook and Windows SharePoint Services site pages, Outlook must be able to create Unicode® PST files on the user's computer. If a policy (or registry key) is set that requires ANSI (rather than Unicode) PST files for Outlook, linking cannot be established. The option to configure PST file types is in Group Policy under User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Microsoft Office Outlook 2003\Miscellaneous\PST Settings. Double-click Preferred PST Mode (Unicode/ANSI), and make sure that Enforce Unicode PST is not the option selected in the Choose a default format for new PSTs drop-down list.