public folders & global address book

Domain Contacts, Public Contacts, Other Public Folders

Public Folders: These are automatically shown when accessed through MAPI Connector (For Outlook) Profile as shown in figure on the right. The Public Contacts and Domain Contacts folder is automatically available when a domain is configured. Other public folders can only be added by postmaster account of domain.

Additional public folders that are created can be of any type -- viz mail, calendar, contacts etc and this is defined by postmaster of domain when the same is being added.

We shall be detailing on two by default subfolders under public folders in sections below:

Domain Contacts: This folder automatically gets populated with the accounts, groups and lists that are added to domain by the domain administrator. While adding a user account the domain administrator can also configure following details:

1. Whether the user added will also be added in Domain Contacts. If the domain administrator prefers to hide a given email address from all users then the same is configured fro the WEBADMIN interface.
    
2. Whether the user being added would have access to domain contacts and Public Contacts. Users who are explicitly granted "No Access" rights to domain contacts will never be able to view Domain Contacts data.

 

The User contact details can only be edited/modified by the account owner either through the MAPI Connector (for Outlook) or through WEBMAIL interface and can also be edited / modified by the domain administrator fro the admin interface for the given user.

 

Public Contacts: This folder data can only be managed by postmaster account. The postmaster account for example can import all "Non Domain" contacts to this folder. Non Domain contacts means those email addresses and contact details which do not belong to domain hosted. This for example can be a list of Vendors, List Of Customers etc.

 

Additional Public Folders: As seen in figure you would see a folder under Public Folder called Documents. This for example can contain corporate wide announcement emails. There is also a provision of who can email to that folder (a setting done through Advanced Routing section in WEBADMIN). Access rights is also possible as to who can view details of that folder. By default, the synchronization policy of all postmaster added public folders is "Disable automatic background download" so user will have to edit the synchronization policy of such folders from MAPI Connector (for Outlook) profile to any pre-configured values that the user may desire to have (say for example Download Complete Message).

 

Any other folder type (tasks/notes/mail/contacts) can be added under Public Folder only by postmaster. These folder are also searchable and also get synced even on Handheld devices/smart phones which are exchange active sync compatible or through Astrasync commercial client for Blackberry smart phones. Please note however, that Contact Folders under public html will not be showing as vcf file when viewed over plain IMAP connection. It either needs MAPI Connector to display correctly in Outlook or Exchange ActiveSync for handheld smart phones. Same applies to all calendars and contacts folders.