A while ago I wrote a few posts about the new records management features of MOSS2007, in this post I am going to look at the Exchange 2007 Managed Folders and how to set them and use them within Outlook. So to begin with let me explain my demo VPC system. I have the following:

1 x Domain Controller

1 x Exchange 2007

1 x SharePoint 2007 and Office 2007

Firstly we will take a look at the new exchange feature called "Managed Folders". Managed Folders are quite simple really they are folders that will appear within the users email directory tree. Each user normally has folders such as Inbox, Sent Items etc, but with Managed Folders we can add companywide folders to each user's mail for storing of emails. To create these folders follow the steps below:

Open up the Exchange Management Console by selecting the links below.

Once it is open you need to expand the "Organization Configuration" and click on the "Mailbox" option. Then on the right hand side the following menu items will appear. Select the "New Managed Custom Folder" option.

Follow the wizard as below:

NOTE: The display name is important as this is exposed through the UI in outlook. Also checking the option to stop users minimizing the message is also a must

Once you have followed the wizard you need to then right click the newly created item and select the "New Managed Content Settings" option.

When creating Managed Folders you have the option to specify what the content type is going to be.

In this example we will be using "All Mailbox Content" as the type.

If you select the "Retention Period" option you can then select when the period starts and also what action to take when the retention period ends.

Now we have created our content settings it should appear listed underneath the newly created folder.

On the right hand now you will see a new menu option called "New Managed Folder Mailbox Policy". Click this item.

The policy wizard will allow us to group together folders that can be managed together. Also we will be applying a policy to a mailbox later on; this means that you could have multiple policies for different sets of users. In this example we will be selecting the "Records Management" folder as below.

If we now find the "Administrator" account and select the properties we are then able to add the policy to the user.

To do this select the "Mailbox Settings" tab and select the "Messaging Records Management" and then press the "Properties" button.

You will need to check the "Managed folder mailbox policy" option and then select the new policy we created earlier.

In order to complete this step we will need to run a command line to force it to apply. This can be done by launching the "Exchange Management Shell" as below.

You then need to run the command below:

Start-ManagedFolderAssistant

Now if we open outlook 2007 we can then see the newly created folder(s) as below.

Notice when you click on the "Records Management" folder the message we added should then appear in the client.

Notice also that when we login to Exchange 2007 OWA the same options are available.