In part 1 of this series I introduced Exchange Server 2007 Resource Mailboxes and demonstrated how to create Room Mailboxes.  In part 2 of this series I went on to demonstrate how to create Equipment Mailboxes.  Now in part 3 of this series I’ll demonstrate creating custom resource properties for Resource Mailboxes.

What are Custom Resource Properties?

Custom resource properties are additional attributes that can be assigned to Room and Equipment mailboxes to indicate which features are available for those resources.

For example, in an organisation that has several meeting rooms with different features, custom resource properties can be used to show which room has teleconferencing equipment, which one has a whiteboard, which one has tea and coffee facilities, etc.

Similarly for Equipment mailboxes custom resource properties can indicate features such as which vehicles have a GPS installed, or what kind of vehicle (such as truck, van, car) it is. Continue reading Exchange Server 2007 Resource Mailboxes Part 3 – Custom Resource Properties

In my last post I explained the concept of resource mailboxes in Exchange Server 2007, and demonstrated the creation of a Room Mailbox for managing meeting room bookings.  In this post I will discuss the other type of resource mailbox – Equipment Mailboxes.

Equipment Mailboxes

Many businesses have tools or equipment that is provided by the company for staff to share and use for work related activities.  For example, a company might have a portable projector that sales staff can carry to client offices for demonstrations, or a pool car that is used by field technicians to get to remote locations.

In order to manage the allocation of these resources to staff an Equipment Mailbox with a calendar is created so that staff can book the resource using Outlook. Continue reading Exchange Server 2007 Resource Mailboxes Part 2 – Equipment Mailboxes

Prior to the release of Exchange Server 2007 the concept of a resource mailbox was already well established.  Organisations had a need to make bookings for meeting rooms or equipment, and so the Exchange administrators created a user account and mailbox so that a calendar was available to manage the bookings.

Although this suited most organisations pretty well there were administrative overheads with this approach.  The calendars could not be easily managed by administrators without logging on to the mailbox to change certain settings.  Delegating management of the calendars to specific staff was also cumbersome.

Exchange Server 2007 Resource Mailboxes

With the release of Exchange Server 2007 resource mailboxes are much easier to create and manage.  Exchange Server 2007 introduced two types of resource mailbox:

Room Mailbox – These are intended for locations such as meeting rooms and training rooms.

Equipment Mailbox – These are intended for items such as pool cars, video projectors, or any other shared portable item.

Room Mailboxes

Most businesses have some kind of meeting room in their offices that needs to be booked for scheduled meetings.  The Exchange Server 2007 Room Mailbox is perfect for this task, providing a bookable calendar resource that people can add to meetings in Outlook. Continue reading Exchange Server 2007 Resource Mailboxes Part 1 – Room Mailboxes